The Silent Heart
by 0-mirage-0
Summary: Reunited in Germany, Hohenheim meets the son he never raised, and Ed faces the man he despises. Handicapped and lost, Ed struggles to find a way home. In a world clashing customs, language, and science, witness a new journey, and the discovery of companionship worth risking everything for.[Riveting story, graphic scenes, pain, heartbreak, and hope. Parental focus only]
1. Memory of the Enamored

The Silent Heart  
Chapter One  
_Memory of the Enamored_

- mirage -

Hohenheim returned to Resembool on a warm August Tuesday evening. Away from the farmhouse for several months he was eager to see his wife and children, and felt robbed when early Wednesday Trisha left for an errand.

"Trisha, I've only just gotten back," he said, following her to the door vexed with her willingness to separate when time together was so precious.

Trisha stepped out into the bright afternoon sun carrying three year old Alphonse on her hip. She glanced back with a happy smile and said, "I will be quick."

She was only in her mid twenties, and even after two boys retained her figure. Motherhood had not squelched the soaring spirit of her youthful girlish self. From a waist as wide as Hohenheim's bicep she had grown two smaller bodies on two separate occasions, and standing in the summer breeze holding her large brimmed hat to her head, she looked cheerfully fearless.

"Don't worry," she reassured. "I am taking Alphonse with me." Alphonse was in sandals, a tiny pair of shorts, and a sleeveless shirt almost as long. About the boy's head was a bucket hat he kept pulling off and Trisha kept replacing. She wanted the boy out of the sun, and had explained earlier last year too much made the boys ill. Laughing, she had blamed him. _"It's your fair hair and skin they inherited," _she had teased. _"They burn and bruise like little bananas."_

"I don't want Alphonse to catch it," Trisha said. "The boys are nearly inseparable, and until I find out what's going on, I don't need both of them sick." That morning Ed had not wanted to eat his breakfast and Trisha said this was unusual because she had made porridge and honey, and Edward loved porridge and honey. When Edward threw up approaching noon she put him down for a nap, grabbed her hat, and started heading for the door with Alphonse waddling along behind her. Things could not have been more extreme for Hohenheim if she had strapped on a life jacket and hopped the side of a ship.

"What do you mean by your phrase, what's going on?" Hohenheim asked, catching the front screen door after Trisha passed through. There was no premeditation, or aligned plan following the spontaneity of human illness. They suffered the weakness of their genetics, and were constantly at odds with their environmental elements and disease. Trisha's suggestion there was some higher order to Edward burping up the contents of his stomach, was universal madness. "I am sure there is nothing going on," he said. His son's illness was inconsequential to the order of everything.

"You might be right," Trisha said, pausing and looking back. She stood on the quaint front path weeding through the lawn to the front steps. On her hip Alphonse pulled his hat from the side of his head and dropped it into the lawn with distaste. Trisha sighed heavily and stooped down. "It might just be heat sickness." She snatched Alphonse's hat and fit it back to his little blonde head. "The boys were outside all day yesterday." She began leaving, one loving hand firmly on top of Alphonse's head as he pulled at his hat. "Stay with him!" She called back. "I'll see what the doctor can give me."

"Trisha, I am under qualified," Hohenheim argued. She laughed a light happy sound as she passed the mailbox. It appeared practical that their roles should be reversed, and he should travel into town, and she should stay at home as she was raising the boys and he was not. She knew where everything was kept, understood the whiny nearly incomprehensible language the boys sometimes spoke, and was familiar with their mannerisms and behavior. These things eluded Hohenheim. The time he spent away from the farmhouse was significant, and this made him a stranger, and rendered him less effective. Wanting to waste as little time as possible Trisha concluded she would be more effective.

Resembool's pediatrician did not know Hohenheim the way he knew Trisha Elric, and would see her quickly, and understand her description of her son. It was likely she could slip in between appointments, and hold a few minutes of conversation to receive a diagnosis, and she would do this after efficiently locating the man's office which had moved since Hohenheim's last visit.

Hohenheim felt as displaced by the town as he did by his own house, and Trisha understood this, perhaps before he did. She decided quickly, and without discussion, that she was going.

"Ed, will probably sleep the entire time I am gone," Trisha said. She made it to the long dirt road and gave him a cheerful wave. "But don't worry," she called back, "if he wakes up cranky, you'll know what to do!"

Hohenheim was stunned with her inaccuracy, and stood in contemplative silence. He watched Alphonse manage to push the hat down the side of his face before Trisha corrected it. "I will not!" he called to her. He certainly would not know what to do with Ed if he became cranky, and he certainly did not know what to do with the boy while disease stricken.

Trisha only laughed again, as if he were teasing her, and continued on her way. It would take her twenty minutes to reach the Rockbell's where Pinako's son was going to take her into town.

Hohenheim shut the front door feeling slighted such a trivial and domestic predicament rendered him so unskilled.

The farm house they built was modest, the kitchen small, living room decent and with a fire place. There was a study for him, and a small mud room Trisha used for gardening in the spring. The upstairs was far more humble with only three rooms: the master bedroom, single second bedroom, and upstairs full bath. Trisha had helped built the house in shorts too small for society, and a shirt just as tight. There were many nights while, with hammer in hand or paint brush still wet, he would catch her stretching up to reach something, bending over to get something, or struggling with something too heavy, and ambush her. She would break out laughing. Sometimes she would run playfully from him, swatting at his advances, until they were together on the floor. They made love often, and she clung to his body, to his form made of bloodshed and human anguish, like it were that of any other human. She was pregnant with Edward before they even had the roof on.

Trisha left with her eldest asleep upstairs in the twin bed the boys shared. Using a modest budget Trisha had tried to turn their tiny bedroom into a child's place. Painting it a light blue, she fit a white trim to frame the bottom half of the walls and dotted fish shapes about with a sponge. The single bed, dresser, and end table she painted white to match the trim, and over time had managed almost an entirely blue set of sheets. Two of the pillows had floral shams, the original sheet set to the master bedroom, but for the most part Hohenheim was impressed with her. The boys' room radiated of her dedication to the children, and it warmed his heart.

Over every absence he observed, he returned to find subtle improvements making the wooden structure they had nailed together more of a home.

Trisha had sewn new white pillows for their sole wicker couch. With no funds for finer items and living in Resembool without access to them, she was resilient. Like a bird toiling to craft its nest she was determined to decorate. Somehow without instruction she had crafted three picture frames out of twigs, and because photos were expensive, pressed a bright white flower inside each of them to match her pillows.

Edward slept for only the first forty five minutes of Trisha's absence, and Hohenheim was in the living room holding Trisha's largest homemade frame when Ed called out a small but purposeful, "Mom!" He replaced it and left to the boy.

Hohenheim stepped into the boys' doorway and Ed's expression tightened miserably when Hohenheim answered in Trisha's stead. Ed was sitting in bed half asleep with his hair a puff about his tiny fever stricken head, and his cheeks as red as tomatoes. On sight of Hohenheim he rocked his body with ornery distress and his right shoulder slipped free from the tee shirt he was wearing. It looked suspiciously like one of Trisha's old ones and was almost a dress on the boy's small body. In an angry whining tone Ed said only, "I want mom."

"Edward, your mother had to step out," Hohenheim explained calmly. Trisha had described Edward's body as a furnace, and Hohenheim found this accurate. Ed was so full of color the boy looked like an oil painting. "She will be back shortly."

Ed turned to the discarded teddy bear in his bed and snatched its leg. Beginning a soft whine he dragged it to himself and hugged tightly before croaking out a soft, "Where is she?"

"Out." Ed pressed his face into the top of the bear's head. "She will be back shortly," Hohenheim repeated. It now seemed logical to him Edward should return to sleep and patiently wait for his mother. Instead, Ed uprooted his head, threw the bear off the side of the bed, and vomited abruptly.

The force of it bent Ed forward, and Hohenheim stepped forward with surprise.

Ed recovered quickly. He sat upright in a straight backed position, extended his vomit covered hand as if repulsed, and broke into tears. After two pitiful, but rather loud sobs, words came, and Ed was crying for his mother.

"Edward, your mother is not home," Hohenheim said, approaching the bed. Always with the children he needed direction. What seemed to come naturally to Trisha was not natural for him, and he told this to her honestly. He did not remember the sensation of what it meant to be human. To grow hungry, to grow tired, or to need the way humans needed. Her faith in his caretaking was the only black mark in her parenting. _"Darling, you're being too hard on yourself."_ She refuted his claims. _"Stop trying to figure out what to do and you'll realize you know what to do."_

With Edward crying Hohenheim felt destined to walk this path of uncertainty until the children became entities that could both communicate and care for themselves.

Hohenheim grabbed Edward's tee shirt from behind and quickly stripping it over the boy's head. It caught the vomit like a bib. Wearing nothing but tiny shorts Ed silenced to consider himself, before thrusting his wet hand towards Hohenheim and continuing to cry.

"Yes Ed, just give…me…" Hohenheim looked around for a clothing hamper, and hesitated to throw the soiled shirt on the floor before doing so. "Okay son." He bent down and wiped Ed's hand clean with the sheets and Ed pushed himself to his feet. Still crying Ed took three wobbly steps to Hohenheim's torso and flopped onto the man's shoulder and hugged.

Hohenheim stiffened.

Trisha was always hugging the children. She said a hug was a tiny gift. Learning from her the boys were growing up in a world where hugging was common, they hugged each other, and hugged Hohenheim as well.

When Edward latched onto Hohenheim with strength that seemed unsuitable for a child it didn't comfort Hohenheim as Trisha said it was supposed to, it pained him. He felt foreign, uncomfortable, and next to useless in the house he had built and with the family he had made. To get to this day he had stolen the lives of hundreds, surrendered much more to the dwarf, and witnessed atrocities that would turn any human against him. Edward's shameless affection for him was salt on a puss filled wound. To have something of selfless absolute purity want only kind attention from his hideous unworthy self was almost more than he could handle. He knew his visits to the farmhouse were becoming shorter and shorter, and the very idea he tried to ignore, was that one day he may simply not return. He did not know how, and in many ways, did not know if he could explain how, it was emotionally crippling for him to come. The guilt, self deception, and pure and undeniable self loathing was too much.

Hohenheim struggled under the hug of a four year old. His hands clenched, and for a moment he was aware of nothing but the slow release of breath from his lungs. Then Edward continued vomiting. Ed retched once, and spilled a small river of stomach bile over Hohenheim's right shoulder and arm.

Hohenheim looked at his soiled sleeve with distaste. "Edward, please, warn me before you continue this," he said. Ed was distressed with his vomit, and whining, began rubbing his hand about in his hair.

Hohenheim carefully lifted Ed into his left arm and stepped back from the bed. He wanted to cuddle the boy while he had the chance. Edward was growing increasingly fussy and often did not want to stop playing to be held. When he did, late in the evening, he only wanted Trisha, and cried if Hohenheim tried to stand in for his mother.

It was guilty pleasure that Hohenheim enjoyed Edward's fatigue and fever. Feeling sick Ed did not want to play, and his desire to be held was enough he would seek it from his absentee father.

With great care Hohenheim pet his hand through Ed's fuzz of hair and marveled at his son. Edward's human form was less in mass than a sack of potatoes, but inside his small growth was every complex organ, blood vessel, and atom needed for a single person. All of the elements were correctly arranged and fully functional, so that at the age of four Edward could speak, coordinate, operate memory, recognize objects, and own all the emotions every human was granted with.

"You are much sicker than your mother thought, hm?" Hohenheim asked, unbuttoning his dress shirt. "She thought it was heat sickness, but it appears a bit more."

Hohenheim shed his soiled collared shirt, switching Ed from one arm to the other. Ed was cooperative, somehow understanding the motions and task, and kept himself curled to whichever shoulder Hohenheim set him.

After delivery, Edward had grown from the size of a fat eggplant, to a summer squash in just two months. Ed was not the first human Hohenheim had seen born, and Hohenheim was certain Ed would not be the last, but Ed was the first human to belong to him. The night the boy came into the world Pinako had set Ed's blanked body into Hohenheim's spread palms and slapped his shoulder grinning. _"Look at that,"_ she had said smiling, _"You got a healthy baby boy." _And that was the truth of it. After decades he had suddenly gained possession of another life form. In his hands was a blank slate, but rather than excitement came fear when he envisioned what might leach from him to be etched there. He was not ready to hold a mirror, and quickly handed the infant to Trisha's weak and sweat drenched arms.

Trisha fell in love with Edward at first sight. With her eyes barely open, and her breath slow and heavy, she slipped her finger into Edward's tiny fist and cried with joy when he took hold of it.

The moment Edward left her body she became a mother, and simultaneously he became a father. A defining human milestone in Trisha's life was sealed, and Hohenheim suddenly felt a spectator at her side. She would now exist and perish in her role, but he would not. He had made an entity from his body, but it would grow, age, and die, and rotting slowly he would still be living.

Within a cherished event the unexpected separation from life was almost startling, and Hohenheim found himself shaken to his knees as a novice because he lacked the single defining characteristic that crafted a parent: human nature. He was untrained and barren of the navigation that filled Trisha the night Edward left her. The scientific explanation: anthropogenesis mystery. She, as a human, understood the infant, and he, being no longer a human, could not.

It was a cold and divisive understanding. For all that mankind had unraveled, the sum of centuries of pioneering discovery and resulting instructional blueprints, Edward came with none.

"How neglectful of your ever vigilant mother to leave you with an unskilled oaf like me," Hohenheim teased Ed, giving his son a wide smile.

Ed was not old enough to grasp the joke. His bottom lip was wobbling and his eyes were filled with tears, but still he cried a whiny, "Yeah" in agreement.

"Now, do you still feel ill?" Hohenheim asked. Ed was sniffling and turned his face into Hohenheim's arm before mumbling a miserable and ill sound of discontent "Edward?" To Hohenheim Ed appeared drunk with sickness. He was struggling to keep his own head steady. "Edward, I know you may feel unwell, but I still expect you to answer me." Hohenheim tried to be clear with the children. He did not agree with the lax and almost inaccurate language and sentence structure Trisha used when communicating with the boys.

"Can I have my bear?" Ed whined, reaching toward the bed where it lay.

"What?" Hohenheim asked, understanding only two useless words. He thought his sons in many ways sounded like little girls, and when he told Trisha this she had laughed so hard she nearly slipped from her chair. She said they sounded like angels, and when they grew to understand the world they would sound like men._ "There's no need to worry," _she had said laughing. _"I promise."_

Trisha often thought there was no need to worry, and Hohenheim found it frustrating she immediately understood so many situations which confused him.

Ed did not have it in him to ask for his bear a second time, and when Hohenheim did not move to retrieve it, he broke back into tears. Hohenheim carried Ed from his bedroom to the upstairs lavatory with growing alarm Edward's human body was reaching a temperature that might damage it. As they traveled from the bear, Ed became worse, and kicked and cried loudly. He reached back over Hohenheim's shoulder speaking, what sounded to Hohenheim, to be gibberish.

"Edward, I am growing a bit worried about your temperature," Hohenheim said, ignoring the boy's wailing. He entered the tiny lavatory and opened the medicine cabinet. It was just a hair lopsided because they were not carpenters, and had no experience affixing it to the wall. They hung it above their pedestal sink and only a toilet's distant from their claw foot tub, which was much nicer than anything they should have been able to afford. Together with Trisha four months pregnant they had tiled the floor and half way up the walls in white, and since Hohenheim had last visited, Trisha had finished the room with a faint lavender paint.

Hohenheim opened the medicine cabinet with Ed bawling on his shoulder and looked at the contents. There were pill bottles, a few lotions and ointments, and several medicinal tonics that appeared foreign to him. Hohenheim lifted a large brown bottle and read the front. The name was unrecognizable and he scanned it for ingredients and found none. "Edward, what is this?" He showed the bottle to the boy and Ed looked at it, still reaching toward his bedroom, before quickly covering his mouth and shaking his head as he continued to cry. Whatever it was, Edward disagreed, and Hohenheim replaced it. "What does your mother give you if you have a fever?" Hohenheim laid his hand in Edward's hair and felt the boy's warmth. It seemed too great.

"Can I have my bear!" Ed cried, leaning back in Hohenheim's arms to look at the man. "Can I have my bear! Can I have it? My bear?"

"I can't understand a near word of that," Hohenheim confessed. He doubted Ed could understand him either, but the boy seemed to and covered his eyes with his hands while crying. "Ed, I need you to indicate what medicine you are familiar with."

"I want mom!" Ed sobbed, and Hohenheim understood this clearly. The boys always wanted their mother. "Where is mom?"

Hohenheim gave Ed's crying face a disapproving look. "I am sure if you take a moment to think about your question, you will find you already know the answer to that Ed." He did not think the boy was paying attention to him.

"When is she coming back?" Ed cried. "When is mom coming back? I want her!" Hohenheim found Ed's foggy comprehension sabotaging. He could not gauge their successful communication with it constantly jeopardized and he frowned at the boy. Sometimes Ed surprised him, and sometimes Ed disappointed him, but the only certain fact, was that the boy was unpredictable. "Where did she go! I want her to come home!"

"She went to the doctor."

"Is she sick!" Ed's expression bled over with panic. "Like me!"

"No, she's just fine. Now will you show me." Hohenheim pointed to the open medicine cabinet.

Ed looked at it. His face was wet with tears, but he seemed capable of functioning while continuing to cry.

Immediately Ed reached in to a cup holding four toothbrushes and offered one to Hohenheim while continuing to whine. Hohenheim obliged, and Ed reached back into the cabinet and took one of the two smaller ones and said, "That is yours."

Hohenheim looked at the toothbrush in his hand with surprise. _It was his toothbrush._ Trisha had kept it, and more, Edward knew it was his. Left inside the cup was one large and one small toothbrush: Trisha's and Alphonse's. Slowly, Hohenheim stroked his thumb over the small nickel-plated brass body and into the felt top. He was touched that this tiny insignificant brush was still within the medicine cabinet as if he belonged.

Ed lifted his brush towards Hohenheim's face to show him and sniffled heavily before saying, "Mine is red." Trisha had done something to try and change the color of Ed's brush, and it looked suspiciously as if she had soaked it in wine. Hohenheim took it and sniffed the felt top. He hoped it had occurred to her it would be unhealthy for the boy, but Ed broke back into tears when his toothbrush was taken away and cried out, "That one is mine!"

"No," Hohenheim said, sitting both toothbrushes back into the cup. He imitated one of Trisha's core parenting techniques as she had taught him using the equation We-Are-Not-Doing + Activity + now. "We are not brushing our teeth now," Hohenheim said firmly. "Now show me the medication your mother gives you for fevers." Ed lifted a hand and pressed his hand to his forehead and Hohenheim understood Ed was grasping the concept of a fever. "Yes, now show me." He was becoming rather impatient. "Edward?"

"What?" Ed whined.

"Are you listening to me?"

Ed nodded unsteadily while looking very confused. "Yes."

"Then do as I say." Ed did not seem to understand what was being asked of him and leaned his head into Hohenheim's shoulder whining.

"I don't feel good," Ed said. "I want my bear and I want mom to come home."

"Edward, if you don't know what medicine your mother gives you, I want you to tell me so I can prepare accordingly," Hohenheim said, letting a hint of anger enter his voice. "I will not be as lenient with you as your mother," he warned.

Trisha had explained that she had begun to discipline the boys the last time he visited. Downstairs in the kitchen, near the cabinet with the bran, was a poorly painted stool. It was an old milking stool, low to the ground, and so worn it was likely obtained for free. Trisha explained that when the boys were disobedient she made them sit on the stool until she decided they could get up. Hohenheim found this entire concept confusing, and did not understand why sitting in a specific chair would be overly upsetting to his children. Trisha had assured him it was, and promised he would agree if he could bear witness. On his last visit he had seen the boys experience the stool.

Edward was first, yanking a wooden toy from Alphonse when it was taken without Ed's permission and clobbering the boy in the face with it. Trisha had snapped at Ed as soon as Alphonse began crying and ordered him to the stool. Hohenheim was surprised with how resistant Ed was. Rather than obey he tried to run, and Trisha had to pull him to it and sit him on it. Trisha gave Edward a full minute on the stool and he cried the entire time.

Hohenheim told Trisha he thought this manner of discipline was ridiculous. He explained his thoughts over dinner, saying, "You have to understand Trisha, you've been rather secluded in this town, and the rest of the world has exhibited rather specific guidelines as to the proper way to discipline boys." Trisha said she found it rather presumptuous of the world to assume it knew better than Edward and Alphonse's own mother.

Hohenheim was speechless.

Alphonse was second in the chair, after repeatedly playing on the stairs. Trisha warned the boy several times before telling him to go to the chair. Alphonse was angry and threw his toys in route to the stool before sitting on it. Alphonse also received one minute, and again Hohenheim had objected. "You need to at least make the time frame significant."

Trisha assured him it was significant enough. "They are only children. A minute of life is a lot for them." She boasted the boys took their punishment serious, but Hohenheim was skeptical. He set the minimum at ten minutes, and she did not argue. She was a clever woman and after marrying a scientist and alchemist had learned she needed proof to win her arguments. She called to Ed, and when he arrived, with his arms full of wooden dinosaurs; she asked him if he remembered spitefully kicking Alphonse that morning. Ed admitted he did, without any concern he might be indicting himself. However, when Trisha asked Ed if he thought he needed to sit on the stool and think about how not to kick his brother, Ed nearly lost it. With Ed whining protests and shaking his head with his eyes full of tears, Trisha gave Hohenheim what she called 'the look' to indicate how she was right. _"Your father is not happy with you Ed,"_ Trisha scolded kindly. Hohenheim was surprised Trisha included him, and stared back at his son when Ed looked to him with wide eyes of uncertainty. _"You need to convince him your behavior will improve." _Ed tried at once. Hugging his dinosaurs he explained, in a child's way, that he had apologized to Alphonse already, and so did not need to sit on the stool.

Although it seemed rather senseless to Hohenheim, he had to agree, for some reason the children responded to the discipline Trisha had crafted for them. He conceded, and told her he would not ignore fact, but he also would not change his mind. He told her clearly, _"When the boys disobey me, I will warn them of the ramifications and they can choose to invite or avoid the consequences. Then I will carry out what I see as fit." _She agreed. She respected his role as their father.

Edward was visibly upset with Hohenheim's stern voice, but no more obedient. Without being certain Edward was deliberately defying him Hohenheim conceded. He took the tabby cloth hung along side the sink for the boys and wet it. He pressed it to the back of Ed's neck and carried the crying boy downstairs.

"I'll read you a book while we wait for your mother, how does that sound Ed?" Ed whined out an unintelligible sentence about a bear.

Hohenheim ignored it. He returned to the living room and took a seat on the wicker couch. Last night when he arrived he had tossed his leather briefcase on the middle cushion and it was still there. On the third cushion and the rug were the toys the boys were playing with last night as well. They were speechless when he returned home, and Alphonse was frightened. Trisha said Alphonse was often afraid of tall people, and not to take offense. She had taken the boys upstairs and put them to bed. When she returned she went to the kitchen to make tea for them, but he assaulted her mid task. They made love against the counter and again on the table. Bits of flour from the day's baking flecked into Trisha's hair, but the entire time she was smiling.

Hohenheim settled on the couch Ed curled his limbs into a fetal position that allowed Hohenheim to imagine the boy in Trisha's womb. Ed was utterly exhausted with his illness, and sat slumped into Hohenheim's lap with barely any movement. In many ways Ed felt like a small bag of flour and looked utterly intoxicated. His face was flushed, and he watched Hohenheim miserably with tired eyes.

Hohenheim lifted the children's book of rhymes from the couch but Ed shoved it away. Smiling, Hohenheim set it back in the pile of stray blocks and choose a hard cover story book. Ed immediately pushed this book away as well. "Would you like to hear one of your father's books Ed?" Hohenheim asked. He reached to his briefcase and unclasped it with his right hand. His left remained cradled Ed's irritable self. "I have a few with me." He took two of his leathered books to his lap, and Ed grabbed at them. "Would you like to hear philosophy or science?"

The first book was engraved with a fine raised emblem and Ed scrubbed it curiously in sloppy passes before speaking. "Can I have my bear?"

Hohenheim tucked Ed's bangs back with affection. Edward had taken after his hair, and it was thin but somehow brighter. "Edward," he said softly. "Do you miss me when I am away?" He felt wounded asking this question, and foolish for fearing a child's honesty. Ed twisted his expression up with frustration and shoved the second book away from the one with the emblem. "Ed?" Hohenheim pressed. "Answer me."

Ed shook his head and peeled back the first book's cover. "No," Ed's tone was angry, even while sick.

"You don't?"

"I don't care," Ed snapped, slapping past the introduction and table of contents. Hohenheim smiled with the disagreeable attitude his son was capable of. With Edward aggravated, he wasn't sure what the boy truly thought of his absence, but it seemed to be taking Ed longer and longer to warm up to his visits.

"I miss you when I am away Ed."

"I didn't—I don't care." Ed fussed.

"You know when I am away, I never truly forget you." This was the best Hohenheim could explain it. Time had a way of being meaningless and therefore infinite. What felt like a year might be a decade, and what felt like a decade might be a month. Endless life meant you were subjected into life as the external variable, you could never be apart of it. Edward seemed proof of this. Trisha was continuing to age, from a young girl to near a woman, and Edward was changing shape rapidly because Edward was not external. Trisha and the kids were internal, a place he could never go.

Hohenheim pet his hand off the side of Ed's head and toward the boy's ear. It was no larger than a pretzel and he tugged the top cartilage down playfully. Ed slapped him off and whined before attempting to push the book onto the floor.

Hohenheim grabbed the leather cover before Ed succeeded and returned it to their laps. "Let's read this one," Hohenheim said. Ed slouched down and closed his eyes with fatigue. Hohenheim turned the pages to his marker, and read Ed four pages on famous philosophical ethics, before Trisha returned.

Trisha entered with Alphonse toddling in behind her. She held the door for him, and Alphonse threw his bucket hat to the floor as soon as he could. "Go to the sink so mommy can help you wash your hands Alphonse," Trisha said.

Ed bolted up with sound of Trisha's voice and twisted around in Hohenheim's lap to see into the kitchen. From the moment Ed heard Trisha, he was committed. He reached for her, raising his voice to a pitch Hohenheim found surprising for one so ill, and cried for her.

Trisha was in route to the kitchen carrying a small paper bag, and stopped, as if startled, with Ed's cry. She turned to the living room and looked surprised to see Hohenheim with Ed cradled in his lap. "What happened?" she asked.

Ed broke into tears the minute she looked his way, and she went quickly and scooped him up.

"He woke himself," Hohenheim explained. "He was vomiting."

Trisha hugged Ed tight and he was crying on her shoulder. With news of his vomiting she laid her hand on Ed's forehead. "He still feels warm." Hohenheim offered her the cold rag had used on Ed's neck and she took it and left for the stairs.

"Wait mom!" Alphonse cried, running after her with his hands raised. "My hands are dirty!"

Trisha paused briefly at the foot of the stairs and looked to Alphonse. He had abandoned his sandals and was barefoot in his summer clothes. "Go to your father, he'll wash them," she said, before heading up.

Hohenheim felt abandoned when he lost Ed and Trisha left with such purpose. With this announcement he looked towards Alphonse at the same time the boy looked towards him. Alphonse's expression disappeared into a blank stare as if Hohenheim were an unusual, and almost, unwelcomed presence in the house. The single year of life separating the boys was enough to make Alphonse unable to secure his memories of Hohenheim as tightly as Ed, and so his father was more of a stranger.

"I don't want to," Alphonse whined softly, taking a step back. Trisha was still ascending the stairs. "Mom!" Alphonse raced after her. "I don't want to! I want you to do it!" Hohenheim followed and everyone arrived in the upstairs lavatory.

Trisha's went directly to the medicine cabinet with Ed whining into her shoulder and Alphonse hugging her left leg. She retrieved a thermometer and Hohenheim felt foolish. He had not thought to check Ed's temperature even though it had been centuries since man first gained the devise to do so.

Trisha leaned back to look at Ed. He was in tears and hanging tight to her. "Ed, we're taking your temperature, open up." Ed opened his mouth obediently and Trisha set the glass stick inside before looking down when Alphonse reached up and pulled at the skirt of her dress.

"My hands are dirty!" Alphonse cried, raising them up for her to see. Alphonse's left palm had a large scuff of dirt from where he had tripped and caught himself.

"Okay, wait one second for me Al," Trisha said sweetly. She went to the claw foot bathtub and knelt down. She turned the water on with Alphonse looking over the edge and Ed clinging to her. Immediately Ed began talking, and took the thermometer out of his mouth to do so. Trisha guided it back inside with instruction to be silent.

Alphonse reached into the running water playfully. "Are we taking a bath?" Alphonse asked happily. "Can I have a bath?" He took his wet hands from the tub and pulled at his shirt. "I want a bath mom!"

"Alphonse, it's time for your nap, so you're not taking a bath."

Hohenheim watched the scene unfold like the bystander to a house fire. He could sense that Trisha was trying to do much at once, but was not certain of what her tasks included. She appeared a bit overwhelmed, with one child on either side of her, and Ed feeling ill, but seemed to have temporarily forgotten he was there. She was acting as she did every day he was absent: like a single parent. She was a sole crusading mother, and all that happened was her responsibility, and all that the boys needed was up to her to provide. She forgot about him as a resource, and if in any acknowledging facet remembered him, wrote him off as useless for the moment. He could not care for his sick son, and Alphonse was afraid of him. His sparse visits were not a residence, and even now, his spectator role seemed that of a traveler, for in the end, he was always leaving.

"Ed is taking a bath, and you are taking a nap," Trisha announced. Ed did not want to take a bath, and Alphonse did not want to take a nap. Immediately both began protesting and Trisha guided Ed off her hip to stand along side the tub and stood up with Alphonse. "Edward, I have to put your brother to bed, be a big boy for mommy and stay here." Ed began whining complaints, and Trisha reached down and grabbed the thermometer bouncing about in his mouth to steady it. "Shh," she whispered, leaning into his face. "No talking while we are taking our temperature. Now, go potty and I will be right back."

Trisha was leaving the room, and it felt abrupt to Hohenheim. He looked between her, Ed, and the filling tub. It did not seem that everything in the lavatory had been completed. "Can he attend to himself?" Hohenheim asked, turning to Trisha as she passed him. Upon his last visit, Ed could not.

"He thinks he can," Trisha teased. For the moment, his last date home escaped her. She forgot, with the children as her first priority, and her mind temporarily consumed with their needs, that for Hohenheim there was a lapse of understanding like a black hole between the winter and summer where he stayed the same, but the farmhouse did not.

Hohenheim followed Trisha to the boys' bedroom. Trisha was moving at an uncharacteristic speed. One with far less care and attention then she normally practiced. Hohenheim found this unsettling. It implied, relentlessly, that there was much to be done, and that he was standing without a single thing to do while she tried to manage.

Trisha sat Alphonse in his bed, and he was still whining about his dirty hands. He was not happy he had to nap and adamant he wanted to take a bath with Ed. In a small child voice he was whining a poorly annunciated defense before realizing he was not alone with his mother. Hohenheim was a cork to Alphonse's speech, and the boy silenced and stared wearily at the tall stranger in their house.

"What can I do to help?" Hohenheim asked.

"I am not sure," Trisha said, trying to answer. She opened the boys' narrow dresser and grabbed a tiny pair of shorts for Ed. "For the moment nothing."

"Trisha," Hohenheim argued.

"You can," Trisha was struggling, "…you can get Ed in the tub?" Trisha posed this more as a question than a task. The children were becoming independent beings and now had opinions where before they sat where you put them, and did what you instructed. As much as Trisha seemed unsure Hohenheim was capable of bathing Ed, she was unsure if her son would be comfortable with his father doing so. "I am sorry," she said quickly, lowering her tone and making it intimate. She had yet to ever apologize for the black hole, and the fact that, for the first time in her life, he was no longer the most important thing. She realized it as Hohenheim did, with her holding a tiny pair of underwear and their children in two separate rooms. She was speaking as the mother of his children, but also as his wife, and he heard her.

_I am sorry I can not be only for you._

Hohenheim left for the lavatory feeling annoyed he was underestimated. He would not entertain anything else she addressed while he was visiting. Whether this life here was changing without him yet again, as life with a running clock always seemed to, he was not ready to let go the way one was not ready to relinquish their possessions. _No, not yet._

When he returned Ed was standing in front of the open toilet pulling his boxers up from his thighs to his waist. Hohenheim paused with confusion, before understanding Ed was not making use of the fly to his shorts and instead moving them much like the other gender. He immediately disagreed with this, and looked to Trisha who was returning from the boys' room.

"Trisha you have to at least teach them like boys."

"I am," Trisha said, sounding confused. "But you need to be patient," she said sweetly. "For fine motor control." She was teasing him, but he did not understand the joke. He was not home to watch the boys color fisting crayons, or see Alphonse toss half of everything off his plate as he learned to use his spoon.

Trisha entered the lavatory quickly and turned the tub water off. "Okay Ed, look at me." Ed obeyed flawlessly, and Trisha took his thermometer and read it. "This is not right." She sounded disappointed. "No matter what I do it's nearly impossible to get an accurate reading. I just can't keep him from opening his mouth." She set the thermometer on the edge of the sink and took a single tonic bottle from the paper shopping bag she'd deposited inside it. "It makes me so nervous."

"Why not sit him on your lap and hold his mouth closed," Hohenheim suggested.

Trisha gave a brief skeptical laugh, and glanced up while struggling with the bottles cork. Her gaze was warm, and in her eyes he could see that she missed him. "Can you give me the Horse Eye Dropper in the medicine cabinet?" she asked, yanking the cork free.

"What?" Hohenheim was startled barn yard supplies were in their lavatory.

"Can you grab it for me?" Trisha repeated, completely oblivious to Hohenheim's tone of exclamation, as she steered Ed to her by his arm. "Ed, you're going in the tub." Ed broke out bawling. "You're going to like it," Trisha said, raising her voice just enough for Ed to hear her over his crying. "It's going to make you feel better." She took Ed's shorts and stood him in the tub. Ed did not want to be in the water and was sobbing as he looked down at it.

Hohenheim was uncomfortable with Ed's nakedness and looked to Trisha for direction. In Ed's ever changing state the boy had gone from looking like an infant, to looking like a tiny male, and Edward's ignorance of this fact gave Hohenheim the unsettling sensation he was exploiting the boy somehow. "Should I step out?" he asked.

"What for?" Trisha asked, with confusion. "Stay," she said kindly. "I enjoy your company."

Ed reached for Trisha as soon as he could and sobbed out a string of questions in a pattern of sound Hohenheim recognized from earlier.

"Yes, I will get your bear, as soon as you are out of the tub my love," Trisha said, coaxing Ed to sit. She reached behind herself and extended an open hand. Hohenheim looked at it dumbly, before searching for the Horse Eye Dropper. It was half behind a tonic and a tin of what smelled like peppermint leaves.

"I can't imagine why you have this here," Hohenheim said, handing it to her. "Where did you get that?" Trisha ignored this. She inserted it into the tonic bottle, filled it half way, and brought it to Ed's mouth. She did not hear his question. She was lost inside the world that existed between her and the boys, whispering a nursery rhyme to Ed as he drank his medicine.

From where he stood at the sink Hohenheim felt himself staring through the window of the world he could not enter. It was hard to think of just how many days it took for her to leave him for the children, but somehow she had, and rather than this being a fault it was a strength. The child that she was had gone, but he found the woman she had become amazing. She was a resilient human, but somehow she knew how frail her species was.

"Van?" She spoke his name for the first time since he'd returned, and looked back over her shoulder. Smiling she was dumping a small bath bin of toys into the far end of the tub, and Ed was watching with miserable disinterest. "Will you hold him for me?" Hohenheim was stunned she would ask. Did she think Ed would cooperate with this? "For a minute? So I can get Alphonse better situated?"

"I think its better you stay," Hohenheim said, gesturing to Ed's sniveling. Ed was succumbing to what was normally a fun and pleasurable experience for him submerging a small boat. Trisha's presence was calming to him, and that was easy for them both to see.

"You can hold him," Trisha encouraged. When Edward was nothing more than a bundle of blanket she used to deposit the boy into Hohenheim's arms and laugh lovingly at his startled expressions.

"Honestly Trisha, I can barely understand half of what he's trying to say to me."

Trisha gave this statement a playful scolding expression. "You have to be patient," she said, before turning to Ed. "Daddy will watch you for a moment Ed. Try and help him out." She kissed Ed's forehead with enough strength it shoved his head harmlessly to the side. Then she stood up, wiped her wet hands and forearms on her summer dress, and left.

Hohenheim stepped forward. He knelt before the tub and dipped his arm into the water. Ed was perfectly capable of sitting up and pulled the eye dropper from his mouth and tossed it into the water. Whatever he had swallowed he disagreed with and he stuck out his tongue and wiped it with his wet hand.

Ed was not pleased. He whined when Trisha left the side of the tub, and followed her every movement with his eyes until she was out of sight. Hohenheim felt compelled, as if he could prove his usefulness, to gain Ed's eyes the way Trisha held them.

"Ed, I will hold you now son," he said, wrapping his arm about Ed's petite torso. He turned Edward's seated body to face away from him and leaned the boy back into the side of the tub. Ed hung onto his arm with blind comfort and closed his eyes once he was in place. "Are you feeling better?"

Ed twisted his expression uncomfortably. "No." Hohenheim nodded with a bit of disappointment. "I puked in bed," Ed said. Hohenheim understood the word puked, but what came around it sounded scrambled. Frustrated he tried to relax and do his best. If Trisha could understand the children, he must be able to as well.

Ed tipped his head back and looked at Hohenheim. "I puked in bed." It took a moment, to understand the word inbred was actually in-bed, and then the rest came. _I puked in bed._ Hohenheim smiled, and Ed understood, as only a child could, that they were on the same page. "Can I have my bear?"

"Yes," Hohenheim said softly. He set his other hand in Ed's hair and stroked it gently. Beneath his mighty palm Edward's skull was no larger than a small head of lettuce. "Yes, I'll get your bear for you."

**Present Time**

"Hohenheim!"

Christopher was a glass maker, and shared the second of the three upstairs apartments in the building. He had the largest and most luxurious being his entire front wall had large poorly insulated windows which overlooked the streets of Germany. Christopher said the natural light was necessary and wielding glass tools in man made light simply was the difference between clay and marble.

"Hohenheim!" Christopher called out, shocked and startled when Hohenheim backed away from the day bed and left him holding down the wet and violently disoriented boy. "Hey! Give me a hand will you! I can't hold him on my own!" This was the truth, and although the scrawny boy Hohenheim had laid in the sheets was shorter and thinner than Christopher, he was proving very flexible. "Where did you get him!" Chris frantically tried to pin down the left arm which threw a jab and missed by mere inches. "Dammit! Is he sick with fever?"

Hohenheim didn't know how to answer this. With the addition of Christopher he felt he couldn't properly manage himself. His mind seemed as if it were thinking too much at once, and likewise, his body, could not act on any one given thought. His self developed clarity felt assaulted and he'd lost the ability to prioritize and identify. As a scientist that rendered him useless, and as a man, lost. Answering questions was difficult, and even the embarrassment and shame he was losing himself so, and so much more so than Christopher, could not bring him to answer the boy's questions.

Hohenheim had put Ed in the day bed which had come with the apartment. It was the size of a standard twin and cast iron with rails on either end. This made it cumbersome to move, and like a piano, a piece often left behind. Being closest to his door, it was the first surface he could get to, and he had nearly dropped the boy inside with his own exhaustion. Now, moving with enough strength the entire metal frame was rattling, a wet and dirty version of his eldest son lay inside lost incoherently in hysterics. With Christopher yelling and struggling to keep the boy lying flat, Edward was just beginning to make noise, and the familiar, although slightly more baritone, cries were making Hohenheim's hands tremble.

Christopher looked up, and his youthful eyes were piercing. With tousled brown hair the color of a golden hazelnut Christopher was lacking a woman's touch. Free of his mother the boy's bangs were too long, his shirts often wrinkled, and he drank too much and slept too little for a growing boy. Now beneath these soft brown strands his brow was tight with a worried confusion and need. "_Can you help me, please!_"

"Yes." Hohenheim managed this one word and turned, stumbling over his own feet, and left for the small latrine. To the right of the narrow porcelain counter he had several bottles and he lifted them up to read the labels. On any standard day he knew at once what he owned, and in what order he'd set them, but today and at this hour, he did not. He needed to read the labels, to look at the bottles. In the dim lavatory light he held them up with the liquid contents sloshing under the tremble of his hand and read.

The apartment was a two bedroom with more space than he cared for, but an ideal location. It came furnished with a few items. Among them was a simple wooden table, wash stand, and twin bed. Over the course of the few months he had resided there he kept the apartment nearly untouched. He did not furnish excessively and he did not decorate. The walls were a light brown, the floors a common pine, and at a moment everything could be left behind.

Hohenheim drenched a small cloth with seaweed generated trihalomethane known as chloroform and returned to the side of the bed. He grabbed his son's face, swallowing up the nose, mouth, and Edward's entire jaw with just his palm. "Easy now," he whispered. Edward jerked with startled alarm when his face was grabbed. For a moment his right eye managed to crack, and Hohenheim feared, greater than should be possible, that Edward would consciously see him.

A spike of fear, hot and suffocating wafted over him as powerfully as if Edward's golden eye were a flame. His arm weakened, and at the same moment, Edward's body dropped into a heavy limp state.

Christopher pulled back panting and wiping at his face with a muddled expression of perplexed agitation. "Holy shit." Christopher ran both hands through his hair and lifted his eyebrows to an extreme. "I mean he's really strong!" Christopher gestured quickly to Edward's slack expression before looking up. "What the hell happened to this kid? Where did you find him?" Hohenheim felt Christopher's inquisitive stare but didn't return it. The top of Edward's jacket had been tugged open in his struggles and Hohenheim was watching the slender and clearly defined collar bone of his son's body rise and fall with his chest. "He's missing limbs, you know."

Hohenheim looked up. Christopher was kneeling alongside the bed and looked sour he was going ignored. The boy was earnest and at twenty two worked a hard fifty-five hour week to support himself and his mother. As Christopher had explained she lived with his aunt, but he was responsible for her portion of the rent because she no longer had the strength to obtain it herself. Young and alone in the world, Hohenheim had found himself unintentionally taking a guiding hand to helping the boy ever since moving in.

Hohenheim offered a smile he knew Christopher would fine reassuring. "I found him in an alley." Christopher was shocked and turned a look of concern to the bed. Edward was sprawled out filthy and feverish in a black outfit with heavy boots. Hohenheim felt himself shrug the slightest bit. Edward's reappearance was like a warrant finding him countries away. He felt need to confess. "He's my son," he whispered.

Christopher's eyes widened. "Your _son!_"

Below the front window Hohenheim had added a single wooden chair and bookcase. With Christopher gawking he pulled the chair to the side of the day bed and plopped down rubbing at his face. There seemed to be a lot of missing information, and he felt the weight of the situation explode in the deepest part of his stomach. _Why was Edward here?_

**Hours Earlier**

"Dr. Hohenheim, stay for another!"

Hohenheim waived off the friendly call from a colleague. "Not tonight," he said kindly. "I must get back I am afraid. I have some reading." He drew his coat about himself. It was not yet cold enough to snow, but the temperature was dropping quickly. He left the bar shuddering, because nearly ten minutes ago he felt it move. _The gate_. Every time it opened and closed a shiver would run down his spine. It was a sad after effect of having traveled through so many times. Tonight, he felt it come, it opened and shut, but the shiver wouldn't fade. Something had changed, something had happened, and it made him itch. It came about just as he lifted the bottle of scotch over his glass, and when he brought the shot to his mouth he realized this particular shiver was lasting too long.

Turning up the lapels of his coat he crossed the street in a jog. After several warm swallows of scotch he had come to the conclusion whatever it was intended to stay, and left to seek it out. In many ways the idea something was deposited here was threatening, but like some of the most horrific sites, he felt compelled to look. When he was a boy decades and decades ago he had held a fly by the wings and dipped its body into a burning candle. Just before, and as it squirmed with its body burning, he felt the same trepidation come to him. There was something humanly awful about it, because within the guilt and morbid fascination was excitement, and glee over your own power. In many ways, he knew more than he felt, that what he would find would be that fly's burning shell.

The sensation of dread came from the North, and he walked quickly. It started to snow in fat slow drifting flakes. Small clouds of breath swirled about his reddened nose. It was hard to gauge the distance between him and the sinking feeling of despair which had appeared like a lighthouse in an otherwise black horizon. In this world where things were different, those from the other side of the gate became distorted. Between himself and the latest arrival of the portal he felt Europe had created a fog he could barely see through. Having traveled many times within the portal he had an instinctive navigation and awareness of its presence. They were old enemies, tired of the old fight, but still cautious of the one another, and unyielding to submit.

Hohenheim followed the steering portal within him, drawn like a magnet to the other until he found what he was looking for. In a snow dusted passage between a locksmith and fabric store, and illuminated by the streetlamp several feet away, was a fumbling crawling clump of shadow. Streaks of darker trash covered cement were smeared of pure snow behind the lumbering body. Although the gate had opened what must have been twenty minutes ago, the thing had managed only a foot of ground from where it had fallen. In the dark it had a hulking frame, with no speed or coordination. Low to the ground, and hunched like a tiger trying to stand on bloody severed paws it was silent. Not even a noise of breath could be heard over the falling snow. The streets were desolate at this hour, and the night was cold.

Hohenheim's shock rooted him in the threshold of the random German alley with snow collecting in his hair. A particular flake fell to the front of his glasses and blotted out sight in his right eye. Inside, amongst the trash of papers and garbage, Edward was struggling to get up with only one arm and one leg. The sight of the boy was unmistakable, but Hohenheim doubted what he was seeing. Slowly, in a numb state of astonishment, he walked several feet into the alley and watched the boy struggle. At this distance Edward's strained breathing and the crunching of the snow beneath his sole palm were audible. He was trying to pull his leg beneath him, and it was dragging a soggy half frozen piece of newspaper in gentle crinkles.

Hohenheim stood motionless until Edward's good arm, which was nearly straight and holding the boy in the fashion of a one armed push up, buckled, and dropped him to his elbow.

"Edward." Hohenheim rushed forward. He dropped to his knees and turned the boy from his stomach to his back. Edward's eyes were barely open and struggled to focus on him. The familiar angry expression was twisted into a permanent wince of silent pain. "Edward!" Hohenheim shook the boy harshly. Edward was wet from the ground and almost frozen solid. His blonde hair had caught much of the falling snow and his bangs were both wet and frozen with it. "How long have you been out here?" Hohenheim stripped his coat off frantically. Edward had stopped moving with his arrival and was pitifully wheezing breath as if heavily congested. "I'll get you indoors." He wrapped his coat about Edward's smaller frame and stood quickly with the boy in his arms.

His body was not expecting such manual labor so late at night, and he felt the strain of it in his shoulders when he managed to his feet. Edward was rigid with the cold, and tucked his chin downward toward his chest. In what seemed to be a state of disorientation Ed shrugged his shoulders up to his ears in defense and need of body heat. He was difficult to hold and Hohenheim bounced Ed's weight once, and gently, to move the boy higher in his arms. This act caused Edward to whine painfully. Like a violin bow set against a string and pulled only an inch, the sound was small and vulnerable. It meant Edward was alive, and that he truly was in Germany, and Hohenheim stopped all movement in awe.

Edward spoke his first word in Germany with his voice barely audible and in nothing more than a single breath said, "Alphonse." Afterward Ed's head fell back and Hohenheim left the alley in a steady jog. He was afraid someone would see him from their window carrying a person. He was afraid he'd cross paths with someone toting an unconscious boy in his arms. He took all the back passages he knew with the snow sliding beneath his steps and the frost of it biting his face. At the base of his two story building was a bakery, and with the door in sight Hohenheim felt a leap of hope he might, at least once since Edward's childhood, be of some use to the boy.

He was able to enter the back, past the shop, with a light dusting of snow over them. He locked the door behind him and stomped up the stairs loudly. His legs were exhausted and Edward's additional weight was too much to keep quiet. He knew his arrival would sound familiar and was hopeful it would be ignored. The hallway light was out due to the late hour and he felt confident that with nothing unusual about his late arrival, or the sound of him, his neighbor would pay him no mind.

He was wrong. Christopher's door opened before he reached the top stair and the boy stepped out still fully dressed and eating. Hohenheim received a fast smile and wave before Christopher lowered the stale bread and single wedge of cheese placed neatly on top and stepped forward.

"What's that you're carrying?"

* * *

Hello, Happy New Year! and Welcome! A thousand thank-yous for stopping by to read my humble story! As we have just begun here is your One-Stop-Shop:

"The Silent Heart" is completed. Beginning today 1/1/13 Chapter One has been posted. Chapters will now continue to be posted every Friday. (One or two may have a two week posting time, but this will be disclosed if applied). To clarify, this story is meant to continue directly after the first anime. It will bring you to the intimate world of Hohenheim's Germany, display how obscurely a person's love can translate into their actions, and hint at what life would have been like for Ed living as a handicapped individual just shy of the year 1915.

Now, if you have read this far…I hope that means you liked it enough to continue. I put a lot into this fic, so I am both incredibly excited and incredibly nervous to be posting it for you! Sharing your opinions will make this easier for me. : ) So…what did you think of the early day Elrics? And what do you think Germany has in store for us?

Your comments make me so happy – and nothing you have to say is insignificant or stupid, so please share. Also…if you're scrolling down to alert my penname or this story…feel guilty if you have not left a review! : )

**Chapter 2: _Parent of Contradiction_ will be posted 1/11/13.**

Thank you again for coming to read. Please leave a comment as you exit the theater.

_Authors Note:**  
**This story contains adult language, violence, and adult themes. As the story progresses the rating will change appropriately. Please properly observe the rating to abide by any governing principles in your life._


	2. Parent of Contradiction

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Two  
_Parent of Contradiction_

- mirage -

With the apartment so dark Christopher's expression of extreme disagreement looked like anger, and Ed's sprawled form like a corpse tossed along the bed. Hohenheim went, slapping at the snow in his hair and dampening the shoulders and back of his dress shirt to the light switch and sparked the apartment's three bare bulbs to life. Where he had walked he left puddles, and Ed was melting into the sheet he had dropped the boy on.

The apartment was a two bedroom with no proper living room. It was a large open space with two attached bedrooms and lavatory. To the far right of the entrance was the humble kitchen, with a brief extension of wall to give it some seclusion. To the left was the modest table and chairs which had been included. That dinning set, in addition to the wrought iron day bed, and single dresser in the first bedroom, were all that were provided. Over the months Hohenheim had added and changed next to nothing, and placed only a small bookshelf and chair beneath one of the large front windows. After carrying Edward home under the anxiety anyone might see him and report him to the police, or worse yet, they would encounter a patrol while Edward had no identification and looked by all means apprehended with a struggle, he was seeking the first appropriate surface to set the boy, and that was the day bed.

"I haven't seen him in a while," Hohenheim whispered, bringing his palm to his face with exhaustion.

"He's all wet," Christopher said, looking at Ed with an incongruous frown tensing his lips. "And he smells really bad."

"He was always so independent."

"You found him in an alley?" Christopher couldn't wrap his head about this. "Drunk maybe?" Neither of them smelled any alcohol. "Does he live close by?"

"Because he's always been so independent, even now I feel more inappropriate than I do helpful."

Christopher's expression sunk with disgust. "He should be thankful for any help he receives now." Chris pointed angrily to the bed. "He would have frozen to death over night." This was the truth. "He'll realize that." Christopher crossed his arms and gave a heavy sigh. He let his anger go and considered Ed critically. "You want me to help you with him?" Hohenheim could hear Christopher's agitation.

Christopher didn't understand what it meant to have family you wished you didn't.

"No, thank you," he said kindly.

Chris nodded and let himself out the way the boy often let himself in. "If you need me…" he stopped in the threshold and looked back.

"A bowl of warm water perhaps."

Chris gave a nod and left. Hohenheim returned his gaze to Ed now that they were alone. The barrier Edward had erected between them was strong even under these conditions. The mortar was wet when Edward was very young, but from the day it was built, it had been this way with his son. Edward held him accountable with the ferocity of a scientist, and he had schooled the boy to think such. With Ed more interested in blocks than chemical elements he had taught the boy that logic possessed a true man of science, and Ed saw no reason to grant him leniency.

Hohenheim stood and tentatively unclasped Edward's damp and soiled jacket. Edward didn't move when he spread it and slipped the right shoulder out. _The right arm was gone._ The left came free with no effort. "Edward." His voice was filled with sadness. "Look at what we have become." He grasped the bottom of Edward's shirt, freed it from his pants, and lifted it over the boy's head. The sight of Edward's chest tightened his throat. "My god," he whispered, closing his eyes on sight of it.

Scars consumed the right shoulder and disfigured Edward's skin like a disease crawling steadily inward. The right nipple was twisted awkwardly at an extreme angle, and the stump was not a clean dismemberment, but undulating surface of swells and sink holes as if it had violently been ripped away and Edward's skin had tried to accommodate.

Hohenheim turned his face down. He remembered his son's body from the summer when Edward would run about in the grass without a shirt. Edward and Alphonse had his skin and were easily sun kissed. Trisha found this adorable, and always took the boys outside.

Hohenheim remembered Edward's body from a clear summer memory when Trisha was outside watering flowers with the boys playing together in the lawn. Without warning she turned the hose on the children. Aiming careful of their faces she was delighted with their surprise, and laughing, had told Hohenheim that she did this often. As she explained sometimes the boys saw her coming, and began laughing, and other times they were not expecting, and became angry. She had a uniquely playful soul, and often, was her own comedian.

On this particular occasion she had ambushed them from behind, and Edward began yelling at her while Alphonse whined. Alphonse was not impressed with his soggy clothing, but Ed was already in his bathing suit and tossed his wet shirt off and ran down the lawn.

Hohenheim remembered the wealth of life in his son's growing body: the fat in his small stomach, the healthy weight of his tiny arms, the pink sun burnt nose. Edward was healthy, and so much so it was hard to imagine him ever leaving his blossoming state. In the summer after heavy rains the far left of their yard would saturate itself into a grass swamp and Edward would run laughing through the water until fully exhausted and half coated in mud. That small, but resilient body of hope, seemed to have been beaten and stabbed into a different larger form as if someone had crafted Edward's childhood into adolescence like you would a ball of clay. What existed now had barely any resemblance to what existed then. Edward's new body was carved with life's hardships and stripped of the weight warm days and meals provided. Carefully Hohenheim drew his finger along the visible rib cage Edward flashed with each exhale and found it painfully violent. "What have you done to yourself?" he asked. Somehow out of the happy eager child he remembered formed the battered body of an angry young man. Edward was bitterly lean. His chest had widened, his hips disappeared, and it seemed almost physically true that to arrive in Germany, Edward had given up nearly everything.

A soft knock came and Christopher returned with a bowl of water. He was disturbed so little had progressed since he'd left, and looked wearily at Hohenheim. It was uncharacteristic of such a confident and educated man to flounder so blatantly. It made Chris nervous.

Edward's appearance was deceiving, casting his disproportionate and filthy body in a weak light. To Hohenheim, Edward's slender frame became impossibly heavy on the trek home, and out of breath he had dropped to his knees and let his arms collapse on top of the day bed mattress. Ed had hung like a cadaver since he was lifted from the alley, but the fall from a secure cradling grip suddenly startled him into a fight. Although incoherent, Edward knew in which direction he wanted to punch, and Christopher had rushed forward and pulled Hohenheim from the side of the bed when Edward's small left fist almost took out Hohenheim's face.

Hohenheim had slumped to his butt in a state of shock, but Christopher had responded and pounced on Ed the same way he would a wild drinking buddy. He pinned down which ever part of Ed tried to get up while swearing at the boy. Now with Ed motionless, Christopher didn't seem any less skeptical Ed would come to in a fit of wild aggression. He was hesitant to leave, and it was obvious.

"Hohenheim, are you sure you don't want me to help you?" Chris set the bowl of water down at the foot of the day bed. "I mean, you know I don't mind."

"Christopher although your company is a comfort I am afraid this is not your place," Hohenheim said softly. He pulled Ed's belt apart and tugged it off. "And although it seems mine, I am unwanted in it." This pained him, in a sadness he remembered only from being human.

"He won't be grateful for your help?" Chris asked, again becoming angry. Hohenheim was silent. He was unable to put his relationship with Edward into words. "You deserve more than that." Chris gestured angrily towards Ed. "What kind of person isn't grateful for help, huh?" Chris gestured again with a sharper more deliberate illustration of anger. "What type of person spits in your face after that type of effort, huh? What kind of son?"

Hohenheim stood folding Edward's belt slowly in his hand. _The leather brought back memories._ "A son deserted by his father," he whispered his confession. He looked down at the wet leather and smiled. "He's always been so bullheaded." He gave the belt a squeeze. "I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say he has been that way since birth."

* * *

In a farmhouse that seemed years away Hohenheim remembered pulling a young five year old Edward down the hall by his hand.

With just seven months from the last time he'd visited Edward and Alphonse had grown taller. Alphonse was not frightened of him, and Edward's vocabulary had exploded. Over breakfast he had tested the boy, asking all sorts of questions and receiving all sorts of answers. Edward showed human creativity and a form of severely handicapped logical deduction. Ed was curious as to where Hohenheim had been and looked at the things he brought home. He showed the boys feathers from one of the rarest birds, and explained how he had taken them right from its nest. He was currently studying what would become Entomology, because he was curious as to what insect life meant within the world, and also, for humans. It fascinated him that there were poisons which could be used as poison and poison which could be used as medicine. Inside a small box he had several species pinned down and Alphonse had tried to rip the bugs out. He succeeded in crushing a rare Lord Howe Island Stick Insect in his palm before realizing the bugs were dead. Alphonse broke out whining and wiped the bug's dust like remains onto Ed, who stood at his side. Looking shocked and disgusted, Ed began yelling at Alphonse in a way Hohenheim had never seen. Trisha explained this simply: the boys argue. "There are two of them" she said happily, as if that put it all together. "They talk to one another, and play together, you should see it."

This was not all that had developed. Alphonse had stopped eating vegetables, and Trisha said she wanted help with this. She said she had tried everything she could think of, and everything Pinako could think of, but Alphonse refused until they forced him, and then he cried. This was not the case with Ed, Ed ate everything, but Alphonse was becoming very picky. Fruitlessly Hohenheim tried to convince the boy to eat healthier, but children did not listen to reason, and Alphonse wanted none of this.

Trisha also warned him he had to watch what he said, because Edward was a sponge. "What do you mean by that?" Hohenheim asked, laughing with such use of the word.

"I mean, he hears everything you say and repeats it. I've had a horrible time of it."

Hohenheim found this rather improbable. "How so?"

"Any time we go into town, somehow, we always run into some form of profanity, and he picks it up. I can't get him to stop."

"Is the stool not working?" he teased.

She was washing the lunch dishes, and she smacked him playfully and repeatedly with the dishcloth for asking such a question. He mocked the stool and she splashed him with the sink water. After dinner she tried to fill him in on everything he had missed. She made them lemonade and they sat outdoors with the boys playing in the grass. She told him about things she had planted, things she had sewn, things the boys had done. Ed was learning to read, and Alphonse was faking it, memorizing shorts books Ed read repeatedly. She said since Alphonse had actually held one of them upside down and looked at the pages while reciting what he knew was written inside it. She said it was all she could to keep from cuddling him terrible.

While they were outside the boys broke into an argument and Ed smacked Alphonse in the face when he disobeyed Ed's instruction. Trisha sat up with immediate interest when Alphonse cried out a noise of mild pain. For a moment Hohenheim was not sure what had happened, the boys were standing along side each other with Ed looking hideously angry and Alphonse holding his cheek, before Alphonse broke into tears and clobbered Ed in the face with the toy he was holding.

"Alphonse!" Trisha called, sitting her cup down and marching quickly into the lawn. "You do not hit your brother." Alphonse began wailing that Ed hit him first, and Trisha arrived just in time to stop Ed from smacking Alphonse for telling on him. With Edward's raised hand trapped in her grasp Ed told Alphonse he was a stupid ass for telling on him.

Trisha turned around and looked at Hohenheim, and he saw her gaze of need. She was asking him to participate, and not just to participate, to lead.

Hohenheim stood up, feeling oddly comfortable with a role he could identify with. He had lived a long time and seen many harsh things in life. He believed he could be a good disciplinarian. "Let me take him," he said, sitting his drink aside.

"No Hohenheim!" Ed yelled angrily. Ed had stopped calling him any title referencing his father role and, two days ago, adopted calling him Hohenheim like the other town's people.

"Do not be so naive you think your mother is the only parent who can discipline you Edward," Hohenheim said, firming his voice to one of authority. He crossed the lawn calmly with his hands in his pockets. Alphonse stopped crying with the change in his demeanor and looked worried, but Ed seemed determined to stay angry.

"Honey," Trisha whispered, giving a small discrete shrug. "You have to talk to them like they're children. Or else they'll struggle to understand you."

Hohenheim did not think poorly crafted sentences meant greater understanding, and he took Ed's arm from her. Ed startled at once, grasping for the first moment, the depth of his predicament. He grabbed onto the side of Trisha's dress for comfort, but Hohenheim bent down and knocked Ed's grip away. "You and I will now go inside and have a talk."

Hohenheim left Trisha standing in the yard with Alphonse and took Ed inside by the arm. He was impressed with Ed for handling this with composure. Ed was extremely nervous with Hohenheim's new behavior, but kept silent. He looked back to verify Trisha was not coming several times, but did not argue until they were crossing the living room.

"This is stupid Hohenheim!"

Trisha said Ed learned the word stupid from town. Among other things Ed had learned when she went to buy mundane items like groceries were: horse's-ass, dumb-shit, dammit, and dang-it-to-hell. Out of all Edward's new vocabulary, she said she despised dang-it-to-hell, because she found it an unintelligible phrase rather than just a vulgar one. Hohenheim found this funny, and had laughed.

"It is easy for the culprit to mock the powers that cause him to reflect and abide," Hohenheim said, pulling Ed along. Since they'd left the kitchen Ed had stopped participating. He did not want to walk, deliberately took his time on the stairs, and by the time they were in the upstairs hall, was digging his heels into the ground. Ed had no idea where they were going, or what for, but was trying to make the travel hard on purpose.

"Edward, this is not how a man behaves," Hohenheim said with disappointment. Ed whined with this scolding. "You need to keep your head when you become frustrated, a scientist does not lose himself. You must find the constructive outlet."

Ed was pressing his heels into the floor as he was pulled into his room. Hohenheim stepped over the toys Ed and Alphonse left strewn about, but Ed couldn't do so. He tripped on the plastic dinosaurs and began stumbling and whining. "I don't want to be in trouble!" Ed cried. "And Hohenheim I think you're—I think you're a dumb…dumb-shit!"

Hohenheim steered Ed alongside the twin bed the boys' shared and dropped Ed's arm. Immediately Ed looked up with worry and took to holding the bottom of his shirt.

"Edward, your mother says you're using bad words and hitting, and you've been told not to, so now you're going to be punished for it, do you understand?"

"I was already punished for that!" Ed whined, beginning a tearless cry and stomping his feet. "Why is Alphonse not in trouble too!"

"Ed, I am not debating the politics of your transgression," Hohenheim said firmly. He had been an eye witness. Ed was squeezing the bottom of his shirt and cringed deeply with the tone of Hohenheim's statement. Although Edward's vocabulary was not large enough to understand it, the boy was, as Trisha put it, smart as a fox. Edward knew the you're-in-trouble tone when he heard it. "Now..." Hohenheim paused, trying to find the path he was supposed to follow. He had set out to do what he had never done with his son, and it felt as if there were roadblocks everywhere. This would be the first time he reprimanded Ed and he would not admit, standing at the eleventh hour, he had mixed feelings about his fatherly duty.

He had promised himself he would swallow his unease regardless of Edward's behavior, and follow a code that would help Ed develop into a fine man. Trisha had said Pinako and some of the other mothers were concerned with Ed's consistent use of profanity. Although he was not sure who these other mothers were, he understood it was now the women, as a collective, who found his son's behavior worrisome, and he had to agree. Something more extreme than the stool Edward seemed to despise, but not fear, had to be done, and history told him this was it.

"When were you punished?" Hohenheim felt stumped. _Did Trisha forget to tell him something?_

"Mom did!" Ed whined out the word mom: _Mooooom_

"When?" Hohenheim asked, but Ed became confused and Hohenheim could see Ed thinking quickly, but struggling to answer. "When did mom punish you for swearing Ed?"

Ed pointed at his mouth with a significant expression of distress. "She put soap in my mouth!" Ed fell into a small dance of dread this was happening again.

Hohenheim began to laugh and promptly hid it. Trisha had told him firmly that things Ed did which were funny, but which were not supposed to be funny, he could not laugh at. "Yes Ed," Hohenheim said kindly. "But when did she do that? When did she put the soap in your mouth?"

"When did she put soap in my mouth?" Ed asked, bringing his fingers to his lips and covering them nervously. "I…I am not sure." Ed was unable to properly separate all days and months in his child's mind. "I am not sure! But she did!" Hohenheim fought a second laugh.

"And did you stop swearing? Did you use more bad words?" Hohenheim asked, certain this was not the case. That Edward's profanity continued well outside of today. Trisha was very attentive to the boys and she would not have made a mistake as significant as ordering punishment twice. "Are you still using bad words?" Hohenheim asked. Ed was silent, and stared up with wide guilt ridden eyes unwilling to confess. "And because you are Ed I have taken you to your room so you can be punished for doing so." Ed's expression caved inward with immediate panic and he looked about trying to spot the bar of soap. "Not with soap," Hohenheim clarified. "Today will be the first day you are punished like a man." Hohenheim brought his hands to his belt. He began unfastening it with a feeling of dread he tried to brush aside. He knew this day would come sooner or later and they couldn't neglectfully let Ed run wild.

Ed watched Hohenheim unfasten his belt with confusion before becoming exited. "Are we going in the pool?" Ed asked, giving a single eager hop. Hohenheim paused. Trisha had, while he was away, dug a small hole, lined it with a tarp, and filled it with well water. The boys loved it. They climbed in and out of it splashing each other, and bringing in any toy allowed so they were almost buried in plastic dinosaurs and blocks.

"No, Edward," Hohenheim said, sliding his belt off and folding it in half. "We're not going in the pool." He didn't exactly understand how Ed thought they would overcome a mathematical impossibility and comfortably fit in the small one foot deep three foot wide hole, but Ed was riveted with the idea and was smiling up with all thoughts of swearing forgotten.

Hohenheim knelt down and took Ed's arm in his grasp to keep the boy's attention. "You are being punished for using words your mother has said you can not say, and because you are not listening to her I am going to chastise you." Hohenheim showed Ed the belt but these words meant nothing to Ed. Hohenheim realized, slowly, that he would have to clarify. Ed lived in a world where chastising did not exist because Trisha never physically reprimanded him. "You see…" he said slowly seeking a word Ed would understand, before realizing dumbly, that as neighbors to a woman with as strong a will and as potent a mouth as Pinako, there was no way Ed had not been exposed, at least in some way, to what life would have been like under Pinako's reign. With this thought Hohenheim smiled as if he'd discovered gold. "Edward, you're going to be spanked for disobeying your mother."

Ed understood this at once, and burst into tears Hohenheim was unprepared for. Ed brought his hands to his face wailing, and Hohenheim felt his jaw slip open. _He hadn't even touched the boy!_

"Ed, stop crying," Hohenheim ordered, giving Ed's arm a gentle shake. "Edward, no one has even touched you. I am requesting that you stop this unnecessary crying."

"What am I being spanked for!" Ed cried, dragging his hands from his eyes but leaving them on his cheeks. "I didn't do anything!" Ed began wiggling where he stood. "Why do I have to be spanked for this! Spank Alphonse for it!"

Trisha had told Hohenheim she felt Edward was impossible to punish, and Hohenheim felt guilty for assuming it was Trisha's gentle heart, and not Ed himself, that made this so. Now standing with Ed crying whole heartedly when nothing had happened, and seemingly unable to grasp why, he felt paralyzed. Certainly he wasn't expected to continue under these conditions. He couldn't punish the boy if Ed didn't understand why.

"Ed," Hohenheim said, adapting a stern tone. "I have explained to you why you are being punished; now repeat it back to me." He gave Ed a gentle shake to gain attention and Ed began sniffling. "Repeat what you have been told."

"For using bad words," Ed whined. "Ones mom said I couldn't say."

"And because you did so anyway, you should conclude, although I have explained to you, that you're being spanked for that infraction, understand?" Ed began shaking his head in solid disagreement. "You can cry if you feel you need to." Ed immediately raised his tone of crying and Hohenheim regretted his offer. He stood quickly and using the grip on Ed's arm turned Ed to face the bed. "Stand still."

Ed threw his hands back and covered his tiny backside. "No! Wait! No wait!" Ed cried, dancing with panic. "I am sorry! I said sorry!"

Trisha had not given instruction as to how he should handle apologies, so Hohenheim continued without her. "Saying sorry does not erase what you have done. You must accept the consequences for your actions. Now put your hands on the bed." Ed began shaking his head. Hohenheim made a mental note to ask Pinako just how she'd spanked the boy. Ed seemed to understand very clearly he didn't want it, and that it was his small rear which was the target. "Ed!" Hohenheim snapped, firming his voice. "Hands on the bed."

Ed threw his hands on top of the bed with Hohenheim's strengthened tone and pressed his face to it crying. "All right," Hohenheim whispered to himself. He gripped the belt firmly and steadied himself. Ed looked pitiful crying into the bed wearing a summer tee shirt over shorts and bare feet. Trisha had said when she tried to punish Ed he looked at her in such a way she lost all capability, and although Hohenheim found it unlikely Ed had these types of powers, and laughed when Trisha told him this, he was now coming to see how this could be true. Ed had already snuck a hand to cover the back of his shorts sobbing into the bedspread. "Ed," Hohenheim said, keeping his voice stern so no trace of his inner debate was heard. "If you do not keep your hands on the bed, one will become two."

"I don't want two!" Ed cried, lifting his head and stomping his feet.

"I said if you don't keep you hands on the bed." Ed quickly put his hands on the bed and Hohenheim told himself to stop stalling. He had seen this done for hundreds of years. The act was simple and easy to execute. He had done everything exactly as he should have up until this point.

Hohenheim laid his hand on Edward's back to steady the boy and brought the belt to Ed's small bottom. In comparison to Edward's innocence the belt looked like a monster, and staring at the leather while listening to Ed cry Hohenheim was forced to acknowledge reality: He was not going to be able to strike Ed. Be it the age, or the pretense, hitting the boy seemed unmanageable.

Hohenheim cast a frustrated glance toward the door. Trisha did not often ask for help with the boys, and he felt not punishing Ed was letting her down. He tightened his grip on the belt and swung it full force into the bedpost. It hit with a horrible crack. _He would have to let Ed off with a warning._

Ed screamed and bolted into Hohenheim's legs. "Dad!" Ed cried, wrapping his arms about Hohenheim's thigh. Ed was frightened by the sound and violence of it. "I am sorry!" Ed confessed, sobbing out his words in large choking breaths. "I am sorry!"

Hohenheim tossed the belt onto the bed and lifted Ed to his shoulder. "I bet you are," he teased, stroking Ed's back with Ed crying heavily and hanging on tight.

Trisha appeared in the doorway a second later, hands over her mouth, looking horrified. Hohenheim broke out laughing at her fragile expression. "Trisha I…" He meant to explain he couldn't complete the deed, but his laughter interrupted him.

"Oh my god," Trisha whispered, rushing forward and taking Ed from Hohenheim's arms. "He's only five year's old Hohenheim, how could you." She looked terrified what she heard was the belt meeting Edward's body. She clutched Ed intently, locking his head into the crook of her neck and patting his back as confusion began to dawn. Edward's cries were not those of pain, and a perplexed expression rippled across Trisha's brow. Edward was crying and clinging to her with all four limbs, but he was not behaving as if he were injured. "Edward?" Trisha called to him, stroking an investigatory hand down his body, but he was unhurt. She looked up with confusion. "Darling?" Then she began to scold. "How can you laugh. He's only a child." Trisha returned to a quick rhythmic patting on Ed's back. "This was hard for him."

"But I didn't," Hohenheim said, indicating the belt on the bed with a laugh. "I couldn't do it Trisha, you were right. He takes the strength right out of you." That was how Trisha had said it, _whenever I try, he takes the strength right out of me._

"What?" Trisha asked, stroking Ed's head when Ed began rubbing it into her shoulder and collar bone crying exaggerated and muffled statements to them. "Not even once?"

Hohenheim shook his head. "I hit the bedpost." He was not overly proud of this. Trisha looked to the bedpost with surprise and Ed leaned back in her arms to face her.

"Mom?" Ed was sniveling and wiping at his face. "Mom?"

Trisha stroked her hand down Ed's head and pressed her nose to his. "Okay now Edward," Trisha whispered, nuzzling Ed's nose with her own. "No more tears sweet boy." She coaxed Ed's head back to her shoulder with him calming and then looked from the belt back to Hohenheim. He offered an elaborate shrug.

"I didn't have the heart."

"Hohenheim, you won't believe the words coming out of this boy's mouth," Trisha said, sounding troubled. Hohenheim was supposed to be the dominant parent, the one capable of harsh punishments suitable for boys. "I've tried everything I can think of."

"So he told me." Because Ed wasn't looking Hohenheim allowed himself to chuckle and Trisha sighed with exasperation.

"Maybe you're going overboard with the belt darling," Trisha said, cradling Ed and swaying gently. "Two weeks ago Pinako spanked him for putting bugs down Winry's dress and she didn't use a belt." Trisha pointed to the belt. "She was able to do it." Ed instantly began protesting his memory of this event but they ignored him.

"A boy deserves a belt," Hohenheim said firmly. This was what he had been told, and what he had witnessed growing up and living over the decades. It had changed from a whip, to a flog, to a strap, to a belt, but it was the same. Boys needed the crack of leather. "I can't use my hand like a woman."

Trisha lifted an eyebrow and the corner of her mouth jumped up in that tiny smirk he loved so much. "Well big strong man," she teased. "Since we can't really consider this a success, I guess you should hide the evidence." Trisha indicated the belt with a little twirl of her finger before carrying Ed to the door. "Before your pants fall down that is."

* * *

"How did he loose his limbs?" Christopher asked, shaking out Ed's jacket. Hohenheim considered the question while beginning on his son's fly. "Well, I mean...if that's private..."

"Yes." Hohenheim slipped a finger into Ed's pants and plucked upward. He confirmed a second cotton with relief, and carefully separated Edward's leather pants from the damp underwear before pulling them off.

"When he comes to, if the plumbing is still acting up I can help you bring up enough hot water for a bath," Chris said.

Hohenheim gave Christopher a kind smile. "Do you have any work you should be doing now Chris?" He tossed Ed's pants to the floor. "I don't want to keep you, and I promise, I am plenty capable."

"I know but…" Chris glanced anxiously toward Edward feeling uncomfortable with the boy's foreign presence. "I feel weird leaving you with him, you know?"

"He's not a complete stranger." Hohenheim gave Chris's shoulder a reassuring squeeze. "He'll be fine." He took Ed's jacket from Chris's hands and offered a subtle glance toward the door. "So will I." He gave Chris the smile he'd introduced himself with. "I promise."

"Okay," Chris said, appearing uneasy. "Just get me if you need me."

"Of course."

Hohenheim locked the door after Christopher and dropped Edward's jacket on the back of the chair. Before the water could cool he brought a rag and began washing Ed's chest. There seemed no reason to hurry and he let his hand glide slowly over the new form his son had taken. He remembered Edward as an infant, small enough the boy could barely manage sitting up. At that age he bathed Edward in the kitchen sink where Trisha washed the garden's vegetables. Once Ed began crawling they moved to the upstairs bath tub, and from there, with Ed splashing and playing he would read aloud to the boy when he was home. Trisha always selected nursery rhymes, and he always selected science. When Alphonse was born she would kneel alongside the tub holding Alphonse upright next to Ed and give him her famous half smile which taunted silently for him to read the rhyme about the four mice living inside a shoe.

Between those memories and this night there seemed ten lifetimes of events. There was a distance that was as real as the wall Edward had built between them. Trisha and the children seemed so insignificantly blissful they were imaginary, and yet here was Edward, a mere decade past, as real as if he had always existed at this age and with this body.

Hohenheim washed until the warm water became soiled. He wiped in long strokes down Edward's chest and about his neck. He washed under the boy's arms, down his thighs, and scrubbed the alley filth off Ed's remaining knee. With the chill in the room Edward was breaking out in goose bumps and Hohenheim left quickly for clothing. He didn't bother to search for anything which might fit. He chose a thick sweater he often wore while traveling and dressed Ed's top half quickly. He brought wool pants and took Edward's underwear which had been soiled with alley water and melting snow, and carefully fit the boy with new pants.

Edward was a child in adult clothing and there was plenty of extra to spare. Carefully Hohenheim tucked down the edges and tried to roll the unused fabric together. Humans were frail, caught illness easily, and died even faster. Although it seemed improbable something as nameless as disease would catch Ed, this was Germany, and disease was besting many people.

The day bed was fit only with a single pillow and fabric mattress. Hohenheim stripped his own bed of a thick quilt and sheet and doubled them over Edward's twig of a body. Since the bath Edward's expression seemed to be growing tighter. The boy's forehead was knitting with anxiety and Edward's mouth was pulling open slowly as if to scream. Hohenheim studied the change thoughtfully, but Edward wasn't moving and he hadn't made a sound. Although chloroform wasn't strong enough to keep him out indefinitely, Edward seemed exhausted beyond fair health, and it seemed probable he'd trapped himself in deep sleep.

Carefully Hohenheim released Ed's braid, rinsed the bowl, placed a cloth on Ed's eyes, and left to wash the boy's clothes in the kitchen sink. The grime from the alley floated free of the leather almost immediately, but the smell was lingering. It took close to an hour before Edward's articles were casted over the chairs of the only table and dripping to the old wooden floor.

Hohenheim left the kitchen, and the sound of his soft footsteps in the silent apartment, after remaining mainly still for so long, brought Ed's first movement. As if launched back into consciousness, Ed's head seemed to snap abruptly in the direction of this slight noise.

"Who's there?" Ed rasped, voice tight with fear and apprehension. "Identify yourself." Ed's voice was low and heavy as if with a cold. Hohenheim could see Ed's twisted expression of concern about the cloth on his face, and he hesitated to answer. _Ed would recognize his voice_. "I said who's there?" His silence was not reassuring to the boy.

"You're safe," Hohenheim whispered.

Ed flinched. There was a voice in the darkness, and even though it was expected, it held a sudden and powerful authority. Hohenheim's presence broke into existence all at once, in close proximity, and at a formidable height. "I brought you in from outside." Hohenheim kept his voice unrecognizable. "I found you on the street." He kept his statements simple and direct, because he felt Ed would appreciate this. Ed was waking up with a head full of nearly useless Amestrian knowledge, and Hohenheim knew from experience that would make Europe difficult.

Ed was stiff, concerned with his surroundings and slowly licking his lips. Unlike Ed's unconscious self which regarded everything, including his own safety, with indifference, things changed drastically with Ed's conscious. Hohenheim knew Ed's first concern would be his location, but that the fact he was weak, unable to move, and in the care and home of an unknown man, would not be lost on him. He assumed Ed would be polite and rather docile until he could learn more about his surroundings, or gain enough power to at least coordinate himself. It was dangerous to do otherwise. Ed did not know what type of person had assumed him, so Hohenheim kept silent. He was not going to offer more information then that Ed pressed for. All things considered, he had not had a chance to collect his own thoughts yet. To even form an opinion on what Edward arriving here truly meant. He was not eager to rush things, and he knew, like him, Ed had an intuition for danger, and he posed none.

"Where am I?" Ed asked again, unsatisfied with the original answer.

"Safe."

Edward managed a slow and reluctant nod of acceptance. _This answer reveled nothing. _Hohenheim took a step closer but Ed physically jerked with unexpected anxiety and he stopped. "You don't have to be afraid," he whispered. "I will do you no harm."

Ed licked his lips again and said nothing. His silence lasted so long Hohenheim worried Ed had drifted off. With Ed barely moving, and his eyes covered it was impossible to tell. Hohenheim considered approaching the bed again, but Ed cleared his throat and interrupted him. "Thank you." The struggling tone of Ed's voice had not improved. "For your hospitality stranger." Ed licked his lips.

"You should sleep." Hohenheim returned to the kitchen for some water and carefully approached the bed. Ed was incredibly nervous with his advance. "I've brought you something to drink." He lowered the cup to Ed's lips. "This is water." Ed opened his mouth the slightest bit but seemed incapable of raising his head. "Can you move?" The thought Ed could not move brought a concern Hohenheim didn't realize he could own. It was a vicious form of immediate panic, as if he had misdiagnosed an equation he should have known how to read.

Ed bristled with this question and swallowed roughly. "You brought me here?" Ed asked, avoiding the question.

"Yes."

"I…don't seem to have…much strength at the moment," Ed confessed uncomfortably. "I apologize."

Hohenheim slipped his hand beneath Ed's neck and lifted the boy's head. Ed waited, with calm experience, until the rim of the cup touched his lip. He didn't try to sip as Hohenheim thought he might. "Please drink," Hohenheim said, lifting the glass with extreme care. He watched the water level advance until it slid onto Ed's bottom lip and over it into the boy's mouth. "You may need it." Ed emptied the cup slowly and for a moment fought to catch his breath.

"When you found me..." Ed paused to clear his throat. "Was I alone?"

Hohenheim set the cup on the floor. "Yes." He tucked the blankets carefully about Ed's neck. The temperature of Ed's skin felt too low. Even an area as protected as the back of Ed's neck was cold. "But it's late I am afraid. Please get some rest. I am right in the next room if you need to call me." Ed gave a small nod and remained silent.

Careful of his movement Hohenheim stood and retreated to the first bedroom. It was unlikely Ed might recognize the sound of his body, but once understood, that sound would be as panic rising as his voice. It was doubtful Ed knew where he was. The reality of this world, and Ed's addition to it, was going to startle Ed into action. Hohenheim felt certain this was true. Healthy or not, Ed would react violently to the news the same way Hohenheim had, so delaying it was paramount. Germany was not a kind place to the naïve, and Hohenheim found Ed's lack of assertion concerning. Ed should have tried harder to secure his location and should have sought means to contact support. This was the most logical course of action when waking injured in a stranger's home. He expected as much from the boy. Ed's lack of action implied a wound to interfere. To stop Ed from functioning Hohenheim imagined a sore almost the width of the boy's torso pulsing with heat and agony. If he had not bathed and dressed the boy, his curiosity and concern would have kept him up until morning.

Instead Hohenheim climbed into bed and hoped Edward's exhaustion was simply the state from his travel. With any luck something as trivial as the speed in which he hit the ground had caused his poor coordination. If not, attempting to calm Ed from the shock of his surroundings was going to prove more complicated than Hohenheim would prefer.

* * *

Well my friends, that was chapter two. It went by quick, right? So far you've only had a glimmer of Germany. These first two chapters build a bit of a base of life back in Resembool, but we won't stay there. Ed will wake up, and then he will meet this new world. How do you think that will go?

Please leave me a review! If you're following this story – I really appreciate it! – but please let me know why. Your opinions are important to me!

Also, as a disclaimer this is NOT a HohenheimxEd piece. It is parental only, developing the father and son bond. Just wanted to put that out there.

Chapter 3: _Guten Tag,_ will be posted 1/18/13. See you next Friday, enjoy your week!


	3. Guten Tag

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Three  
_Guten Tag_

- mirage -

Hohenheim was an early riser and at four, with the lighting still dim, and not a thought to his own morning routine, he went directly to check on Ed.

Edward was exactly where he was left. Deep in sleep and drooling Ed didn't so much as twitch when Hohenheim rested a hand on his forehead. Ed's color was still rather ghastly, but he looked tranquil and this was an improvement. Feeling modestly reassured Hohenheim left to care for himself and at five, with Ed still snoring, he snuck from the apartment in search of breakfast.

Christopher's door was directly across the hall and often left open for ventilation. With the sound of Hohenheim's exit a sleep deprived glass maker looked up from his workbench and broke a happy carefree smile. "So, how'd it go?" Chris asked, pulling a fat glove off his right hand and smacking the glass dust off his heavy apron.

Hohenheim passed Christopher's door for the stairs. "We didn't speak much, Chris. It was late."

Chris followed eagerly. "Didn't speak much? I thought you hadn't seen him in a long time. I thought you'd probably be fatigued from all-night reminiscing."

Early morning hours were the best in the first floor bakery. The air was saturated with the smell of the flour, yeast, and sugar. Hot berries carried an intense and natural sweetness into the air that lingered and smelled of sweet German sugar pastries. Hohenheim looked over the fresh muffins with mild interest. Nothing in particular called to his pallet.

Chris talked as he browsed, and no one in the shop paid Chris any mind. There was but one small girl in the back to mix dough and several other customers purchasing breads and common pastries. The bakery was incredibly well known to the community and had its own morning ecosystem of routines. Of those included the widow from two buildings up buying Schwarzbrot every morning, Hohenheim's impulsive presence when the need for breakfast took him, and Christopher's good natured morning chatter. Chris was a regular visitor, as the bakery was a social outlet, but not a regular customer thanks to Germany's worsening economy.

The city was alive by five and the large bakery windows framed a busy street full of cars and people. The shop was located just before the fourth main intersection so the front walk was very hectic. Sandwiched about a combination of small stories and urban apartments housing more occupants than advisable, everything from food to medicine was easily in reach. This part of Germany still made it easy to get lost, and Hohenheim took solace in this. He was well known and well respected because he had lived long enough to master all forms of chivalry and many trades. Deliberately he has crafted a talent of being remembered but not found, and it served him well. Placing the apartment here, subtle comforts were in reach, but the happenings of Germany, and those who caused change such as the politicians and great minds, were not. He had found it was better to have that area of town within a day's travel than within your own backyard.

Hohenheim walked past the shelf of the day's breads to browse the tiny counter display. He had found he could come and go easy and inconspicuously. The building had a long hall from the back door that was frequently empty, and he enjoyed his privacy.

"You've put a lot of thought into how we could have passed the time Christopher," Hohenheim teased. He bent down and looked into the glass display. After smelling the blueberries and raspberries he was in the mood for something sweet, but recognized something plainer might be best for Ed's stomach. He indicated the hot and fluffy croissants which twenty minutes ago had been in the oven.

Behind the counter Adala packed the croissants into a small paper bag. She looked refreshed today. With old age her skin was becoming tough and her hair gray, but she was a nice landlord and a good cook. She waved her hand to the money Hohenheim offered the same way she did hers when he helped to fix a leak. Her husband had died of a simple human respiratory disease, and since Hohenheim responded to small civil chatter, she had managed to get him up a few ladders when in a pinch.

"That's a little disappointing," Chris said. Hohenheim reached into the bakery bag and offered Chris a croissant. He knew the boy was hungry. "What are you going to go do now?"

Hohenheim sighed with all the questions. He gave Adala a smile and returned to the back stairs. Chris followed him chewing.

"I am going to have breakfast."

Chris stopped at the landing and watched Hohenheim climb the stairs. Since Hohenheim had gained his immortality he had remained the same size, but it was a formidable one. His frame held significant solidarity with strong muscles in his arms.

Chris called after him. "Doctor Hohenheim?"

Hohenheim continued up a few steps before turning to the boy. Chris was eating quickly, and seemed concerned the same way he had last night when something as foreign, and possibly as volatile as Edward, arrived. Still, Hohenheim was a grown man, and Christopher waved this off and returned to the bakery grumbling to himself. Hohenheim found it amusing that the far younger and much weaker existence of Christopher would worry about a sin like him.

Hohenheim returned to his apartment. Christopher was a good boy, and ever since he'd taken the time to show interest, he'd gained a friend in a place he thought he didn't want one. In a way he was playing the role with Christopher he'd never had a chance to play with Ed.

Hohenheim entered the unlocked apartment casually, but the noise of his return startled Ed. Hohenheim was the sudden sound of a door and heavy male footfalls. Ed looked toward Hohenheim's entrance with the understanding someone unknown was entering an otherwise silent place, and the startled jerk of Ed's frame caused the day bed to squeak.

Hohenheim stopped. "It is just me," he whispered. He closed the door delicately. Ed's ears seemed very astute. In the time Hohenheim had been to the bakery Ed had woken up, but otherwise had not moved. The boy was still in the same position on his back with the cloth over his eyes. The heavy quilt was pulled to his shoulders and Hohenheim found it curious Ed had not adjusted the cloth so he could see. After Edward's show of strength last night, he had to assume the blanket was not pinning the boy down.

"I am glad to see you are awake." Hohenheim locked the door slowly so Ed would hear it happen. As he did so he watched Ed carefully, and as the lock turned, kicking the latch forward, Ed's head tilted just a fraction.

As a man of science Hohenheim began testing a sudden made hypothesis. With Ed awake with barely more than a single sense to comprehend with, he felt certain Ed was listening, and listening with a scrutiny meant to compensate for the lack of his other senses. _Silently, but studiously, Ed was keeping track of every sound to understand his surroundings._

To put the boy at ease Hohenheim made his movements audible. He wanted Ed to understand them, and walked loudly to the kitchen. "I hope you are hungry." He set two croissants on a plate and approached the bed. "Are you all right?" he asked, noting with concern that Ed's expression was incredibly tight.

"Your voice," Ed said flatly. Ed was disturbed with the lack of identity. "Do you always whisper?" Ed's tone was accusatory. When Ed awoke that morning he found moving was very difficult, and in an unknown location with an unknown person, he was at the mercy of whoever had carried him home. Hohenheim could see the caution rippled across Ed's brow and understood part of this was his fault. That it was his absence, Trisha's illness, and the gate which had done this to his son. _Edward had learned well and early on, that not everyone was nice._

Hohenheim pulled a warm flaky shred of croissant from the fattest roll and lowered it to Ed's face. "This is croissant." Ed was confused with the statement, and for a moment did nothing, until the smell of fresh bread reached his nose. At a slow, but eager speed, Ed raised his arm and took Hohenheim's wrist in a weak powerless grip. The strain of the mere lift had Ed's arm shaking with fatigue, and Hohenheim was surprised. His eyes dropped to the thin and slender fingers of Ed's flesh palm, and Ed's hand which was too small to wrap about his wrist.

Ed pulled it blindly towards his opening mouth. The action was that of a starving person and Hohenheim was expecting the croissant to be eaten in one bite. Instead Ed's jaw seemed just as exhausted. His fingers migrated down Hohenhiem's looking for the bread before plucking it forward and slowly pressing the shred into his mouth.

"Thank you," Ed whispered, chewing slowly. "I'll pay you for your troubles." Hohenheim retrieved a knife and some butter. _He thought his son could use some extra weight_. He sat down along side the bed and Ed gave a gentle shift of his weight. Hohenheim realized slowly, and with a hint of embarrassment, that being immobile and blind was making Ed uncomfortable with the proximity of him and he reached tentatively for the cloth on the boy's eyes.

"You can rest." His fingers paused at the edge of the cloth. He wanted Ed to sleep and recover his strength. Removing that cloth meant addressing the clear and present truth he was dreading. _Ed did not know where he was. Ed did not know what had happened._ Sight was synonymous with explanation, and Hohenheim was certain Edward would not be able to rest once he cognitively understood his situation.

"I appreciate the hospitality," Ed rasped, before swallowing heavily to clear his voice. The boy was naive to the fact Hohenheim's hand was inches from his face. "And," Ed's flesh hand plucked at the cotton sweater on his chest, "the clothing. I'll pay you for them." These words made Hohenheim smile and he withdrew his hand. _In this world Ed's money was worthless._ "Do you live here alone?" Hohenheim felt a level of sadness settle over him when Ed struggled to make conversation. Even so fatigued Ed's voice was curious and desperate to understand where he was and what was happening. _The truth would be unavoidable._ "We sound as if we're on a second floor." Ed's ears were sharp. "Are we close to a main road?" Hohenheim set the knife down on the edge of the day bed. A tiny clank identified this action, and the metal upon metal sound was recognizable as a dinner utensil. Ed tipped his head toward the noise but did not seem alarmed. "So…" Ed whispered, giving his lips a lick. Hohenheim could hear Ed's confusion his questions were being ignored, and under that confusion, was growing suspicion and alarm.

Hohenheim took a breath. _There was simply no easy way to do it._ "Edward, I don't want you to startle," he said kindly, revealing his true voice. In the quiet room it seemed to come suddenly, and was powerful. Although he tried his best to keep a reassuring intonation, the sound of him stiffened Ed so completely it seemed every muscle in Ed's body locked at once. "We should talk son."

Faster than Hohenheim thought possible Ed's hand sprang out and snatched the butter knife he'd set down. With a solid kick Ed propelled himself to the other side of the day bed with the blade raised.

Hohenheim leapt up with alarm. Ed was failing to maintain balance and was teetering badly. The pants on the boy's legs were too big and swam about his slender frame becoming tangled. With lifeless grace Edward's bangs slid into his face, the cloth fell away, and Hohenheim recognized the rapidly blinking golden eyes. Ed was struggling to find his vision. "Get away from me," Ed seethed, struggling back another inch. Ed's voice was laced with venomous hate. Inside the boy's grasp the knife was shaking as if with rage.

Hohenheim was speechless. He couldn't have fathomed Ed was capable of such sudden strength. Ed gave the knife a deliberate jab forward. "_Back up_," Ed snarled. Hohenheim lifted his gaze from Ed's trembling hand to Ed's eyes and recognized the sudden fury for what it was: _Fear:_ Raw and blinding fear.

"Edward." Hohenheim raised his hands slowly as if at gun point, but Ed only escalated.

"Stop stalling and come out!" Ed gave the knife a wild shake. "I'll cut that face off you, I know it's you. You think you'll fool me with this!" Ed cried, giving the knife another quick jab forward. "Envy, get out of that form!"

_Oh,_ Hohenheim thought slowly, s_o some of the anger was real. _"Edward, I am not Envy," Hohenheim said quickly. He spoke in German, and was relieved that Ed appeared to be comprehending him and responding in the same language. Although Amestris's language was different, it had only the ill effect of poor pronunciation with the pass through the gate. "I am not Envy, Edward," he repeated, taking a step closer.

Ed physically jerked with the flare of panic this brought. "Back up!" Ed's used his single flesh leg to press himself back. "I am not kidding!" With all of his focus on Hohenheim, Ed was not paying attention to where he was backing up to, and in one final uncoordinated shove, hit the iron rail too close to the edge and toppled off the side.

Ed dropped from the low day bed like a ton of bricks. He was in every way unprepared for the fall. Gripping the butter knife as his single weapon, Ed refused to let it go, and therefore didn't even try to catch himself. The sound of Ed hitting the cold hard wood was little more than a weighed thud, the drop of a rolled carpet. What was only a three foot decent, and harmless for any child over four, felt like forty feet to Ed's injured body. The impact came like a baseball bat to the side, face, and single good arm.

Ed didn't drop the knife. He cried out once, in surprise and pain, the same way he would have under the first blow of a bat. Then he curled into a fetal position clutching the knife and hissing his exhales.

Hohenheim rushed to Ed's side with the same fear he felt when Alphonse, as an infant, used to extend his large and weighed head over the couch edge, and then promptly start falling off. When an infant fell everyone panicked, but somehow Ed dropping from the day bed at sixteen, felt like baby Alphonse falling head first off the couch.

Hohenheim knelt quickly at Ed's side and whispered to the boy. "Edward, you need to relax."

Ed was wheezing as if the fall had been a powerful blow to his lungs. With the blankets yanked half from the bed Ed's legs were tangled in them. About his head, golden strains of hair had fanned outward like a blooming sunflower. Ed tried to lift it and managed only a few inches. From his scalp his hair hung in limp threads. Ed managed to rasp the word 'get'. The beginning of what Hohenheim could only assume was an order for him to back away. With Ed's single arm pinned beneath him, he wasn't able to manage any movement and Hohenheim gestured at Ed's crumpled body with confusion.

"Ed, do you want me to help you?" he asked softly.

"Get…aw…away…" Ed choked. Recovering slowly, and under much strain as he tried to expedite any form of motor control.

Hohenheim felt at a loss. Ed was no longer of the age where he could simply scoop the boy up and put him in bed. Additionally, Ed had made it very clear throughout his life he preferred you ask before you assume. Helping Ed back into bed under the assumption that was what needed to be done, was not going to be enough for the boy.

"Ed," Hohenheim said softly. "You don't seem to be in good health." He appealed to Ed's rational side, but Ed was a mess. With the fall Hohenheim's loose and oversized sweater, had flopped up and exposed Ed's back to the cold air. Ed leaned away in what looked to be an attempt to speak, before slowly pushing himself an inch to the side. The driving need to place space between them seemed ever prevalent, and Ed was trying with everything he had to do so.

Hohenheim watched this with confusion. Did Ed really think a couple of inches would change anything? "Ed," he cautioned. "I do not have any articles which fit you." Ed's small shoves were slowly pulling his far too large pants down. "You may want to stay still."

Ed was consumed with his escape, and did not hear this. The last thing Ed was focusing on was the irrelevant and unthreatening notion of what he was wearing.

"You're not entirely decent, you understand?" Hohenheim asked, both discovering and nearing the line in the sand where he would intervene. There was the concern of Ed's temperature to consider. Although accidentally, Ed was undressing himself to the cold apartment after struggling to maintain standard body temperature under blankets. Ed's latest shove dropped his pants the few inches necessary to expose his protruding hipbones and the patch of hair which grew progressively thicker from Ed's navel downward. Edward's dress was as ridiculous as an adult's sock on an infant's foot.

"Ed, I am going to help adjust your clothes because they're slipping off," Hohenheim said, beginning a deliberately slow reach towards Ed's body.

Ed was like a beached whale. Trapped on his side, and gripping the dull knife, Ed looked at the extending hand with terror. Ed gave his head a single shake, and it was unclear if this was in response to what Hohenheim had said, or simply the descending palm.

"Stop it!" Ed croaked, squeezing his eyes closed and curling his leg in tighter.

"Let me help free your arm then," Hohenheim said, steadying Ed's torso and pulling his left arm out from under him. Ed immediately reached to his pants and, with his hand shaking and still holding the knife, pulled them back to his hips.

Hohenheim was silent. He watched Ed correct himself in scared frantic movements which were too short and sloppy for a healthy individual. Ed pulled his pants upward in front first, before reaching behind to his tale bone and completing the job. This meager activity and Ed's struggles fully exhausted him. Ed dropped his head back to the floor as if it were too heavy to hold and lay panting. After four heavy breaths and a single hard swallow Ed lifted the knife and pointed it at Hohenheim's face.

"I'll…cut your heart out," Ed whispered, managing only to exhale his words. Ed held the knife with white knuckles. His voice was almost too weak to hear. "Don't…think I won't."

The ability to fight seemed to have drained out of Ed's physical body. All that was left were Ed's eyes, blazing in the glare of a scared animal, while practically slipping closed on him. Hohenheim addressed this sensibly, the same way he had when Ed suggested they climb into the outdoor child sized pool Trisha had made.

"Edward, Envy is not here." Hohenheim stood and examined the state of the blankets. "You are on the other side of the gate now." _Ed needed to understand this the same way the boy should have understood he could not fit into a pool a fraction of his size. _"On the other side," he repeated, waiting for Ed to absorb the magnitude of it all.

Ed stared up at Hohenheim with an expression twisted with hate, before slowly Ed's brow began relaxing with shock.

"You are with me." Hohenheim gave his son a moment to digest and decide to trust. "That is truth, and that is fact." Edward's mouth slipped open with fearful disbelief. He understood what was being said, but his skeptical aggression, and the likelihood this was a trick rather than an alternate reality, was still raging.

Hohenheim could see this, and offered more evidence. "If I had wanted to hurt you, why would I have waited?" he asked plainly. "I have had ample opportunity, and even now…" Hohenheim bent down and took the butter knife away. With a simple tug it slipped from Ed's grasp. "…it would be easy." He stood up and bounced the knife in his palm. Ed released a series of quick blinks when Hohenheim did so, but never severed the intense fixated stare. "I am not him." Hohenheim tossed the knife to the day bed.

"You're not Envy?" Ed asked softly, attempting to prop himself up with his arm. He managed a few inches and gave up. Hohenheim shook his head in a slow kind fashion. Ed's upper half was wobbling unstably. "You're not?"

"No, I am afraid not."

Ed was frozen with Hohenheim's words. His look of skepticism disappeared and his eyes widened to a painful degree.

"How…How is this…" Ed was horrified. He tipped his head down and stared at the floor in stunned silence. Every bit of him fell to the intensity of this new understanding, and he stopped all sound and movement like an unwound toy. "How…did….but I…"

"Come now," Hohenheim said, with fragile optimism. He did his best to ignore Edward's grief stricken appearance and bent down and looped an arm about Ed's body. _If Ed was incapable of raising his top half, he was incapable of getting off the floor._ The line in the sand had appeared for him and he knew now, the same way he did when Ed tried to drink from his first adult cup, that he should do something. He would put the boy in bed, the same way he took the cup away after Ed dumped it over his face and down his shirt.

Hohenheim managed to get his arms about Edward's skinny body and prepared to lift the boy from the floor. "How!" Ed startled into speech with the touch. "Where is this exactly? How did I get here!" Ed weighed no more than a small adult sheep, and stiffened with the raise. "_Put me down!"_ Ed grabbed at his quilt for privacy. Hohenheim stepped to the bed and this tugged sharply at the blanket under his feet. He paused, but Ed was not patient. "_Now! _Do it now Hohenheim!" Ed demanded, attempting to squirm. Ed was recovering strength from his fall, but still possessed too little to put up a fight. Without needing to move himself, Ed was focusing all of his energy into vocals and raising his voice. "_Put me down!"_

With Ed's wiggling Hohenheim instinctively gripped tighter and held Ed closer for safety. He feared dropping the boy. He brought both arms closer like a groom hugging his lifted bride. In Ed's ragdoll state he folded in on himself without any resistance. His head fell to Hohenheim's chest and landed below the man's chin. Upward wafted the very specific and unduplicated scent of Edward's personal aroma.

Hohenheim noted the change in smell and paused with the familiar, but momentarily unknown odor. Then it felt like an explosion, and hit like a collision of memory. It was a staggering amount of recollection and emotional dedication. He had not smelled his son in nearly a decade, but Edward smelled the same now as he did when he was born. Beneath the lingering alley trash and foreign clothes, was the smell of the X chromosome from Trisha and the Y chromosome from his own body.

Edward smelled like Amestris, a country home, his wife, and his family. It was the smell of Hohenheim's own body and the person which had split out of his DNA and soul. It was the smell of his son, and Hohenheim leaned his face into Ed's hair and inhaled with hunger.

Ed froze under an overwhelming sense of invasion. _"What are you doing!"_ Ed cried.

Hohenheim sat back onto the day bed with the blanket still taunt about Ed's left leg and mainly on the floor. Ed settled into Hohenheim's lap and immediately tried to shove away. "_Not here!" _Ed cried indignantly. "Don't put me here! Put me down!" With his single hand Ed flattened his palm to Hohenheim's chest and tried to push the man away. Hohenheim ignored this action with ease. He was lost within the memories Ed's smell had brought him, and he didn't feel the angry shoving hand. He was remembering a blonde three year old who caught a frog no bigger than a half dollar in the backyard of a small crooked farmhouse. Determined to share it, Ed had climbed up Hohenheim's lap still wet from the vegetable basin they'd filled for him to play in, and pressed their noses together.

In that moment was Edward's smell, and it was a heart wrenching tease. After all that had changed, the politics, her death, and the move from Amestris to Europe, to find something from that time, which seemed so long ago and lifetimes away, preserved perfectly and presented again when everything had been taken, felt like a cosmic joke from the gate.

"I used to hold you like this as a child," Hohenheim whispered, closing his eyes. His lap had been a world large enough to fit an entire small person, the blanket Ed carried until he was three, four books, and Ed's stuffed bear which had eventually lost both button eyes. Trisha had set the first in the cabinet with her sewing things to mend, but never found the time. When Ed was four he ripped the other button off the bear and Alphonse had cried.

Hohenheim tightened his arms, and through the ribs on his right side, he could feel Ed's heart beating. "For a moment…" Hohenheim left his memories and returned to the present. He looked down at Ed, and the boy was staring up at him in fearful shock. "…let me hold you like I did when you were younger." Hohenheim lifted the blanket up from the floor and laid it back over Ed's body. Ed was colder than him, and he tucked the boy in tight before resting his cheek in Ed's hair. He was acutely aware of the weight in his arm being Edward's entire existence, and the minimal weight on his lap a result of Ed being so disproportionate. "What's happened between us is really unfortunate," he said softly. "I think I had finally come to believe I'd never see you again." This was the truth, and it had been months since he had even allowed himself to entertain memories of Amestris and everything which had happened there. "It's amazing to me." This statement was meant to summarize everything. The resiliency of the human race, the capability of Edward's soul, the damage to Edward's physical form, and the concept even a monster could love his son when something as precious as love was undeserved. "My son."

In a healthy state Ed would have been overcome with the numerous topics opened all at once with Hohenheim's brief whimsical statements. Feeling nauseous and with his head pounding Ed closed his eyes unable to take anymore and wanting a moment to rest. He gave the old man as much as he could stomach, and after a minute of remaining patient in a state of confused disgust and unease, he stirred.

Ed cocked his elbow back and shoved at whatever part of Hohenheim it touched. "You're hurting me," Ed said miserably. Hohenheim adjusted his arm, propping Ed's body upward. This caused a fast spike of pain, like the jab of a sharp metal pole and Ed cried out. "Ah! This hurts! You're hurting me!" Hohenheim quickly laid Ed back and Ed flattened out breathing heavily and rubbing at his chest. "What happened to me?" Ed was confused and cracked an accusing eye to Hohenheim's befuddled expression.

"You haven't any wounds that I can see." Hohenheim lifted the bottom of Ed's sweater to examine Ed's chest but Ed slapped him off and held his clothing down.

"Don't touch me." Ed lifted a finger to Hohenheim's face and narrowed his eyes into a fierce gaze. "Now I let you do this thing you're doing, this _hugging_ thing, as payment for breakfast and whatever I am wearing, but that doesn't mean you can touch me." Ed lowered his finger and resumed rubbing his chest. "I don't want to be in debt to you, understand?"

This concept was maddening to Hohenheim. "You could never be in debt to me Edward."

"I decide what debt I have," Ed snapped, closing his eyes needing rest. Ed's breathing had increased with strain, and Hohenheim found it disturbing such minimal activity exhausted Ed.

Ed's body was slack and his forehead looked damp with cold sweat. These were the symptoms you had with an open wound, and Hohenheim didn't understand it. He racked his brain, arguing against the fear the room might have been too dim to properly notice a wound, but he was certain what was left of Ed's body was intact. Although he had not scrutinized the boy in detail, he had at least run the bathing rag over everything important.

"What's bothering you?"

Ed stopped rubbing and jabbed his chest irritably. "My chest."

"I'll call a doctor." Hohenheim carefully shifted Ed into the daybed, and Ed did little to participate. He was languid and eagerly collapsed and let Hohenheim cover him.

"You sure…" Ed muttered. Hohenheim left for the kitchen. "…sure you're not Envy?"

Phone numbers in Germany had only four digits, but even so Hohenheim found he could never remember them. What one city, or world, had as phone numbers was simply not of consequence enough to commit to memory. He had to leave to his bedroom and fish the number out of his journal. Then he placed the call with Ed slumped into the side of the day bed watching him with half massed eyes.

Graham Gratter could talk, and Hohenheim gestured Ed take to the waiting croissants when he realized the call may not be as quick as he anticipated.

Ed used the next three minutes shuffling himself to the side of the day bed. He reached first to collect the plate of croissants, then the butter, and again the butter knife which had been buried. At first chance Ed crammed an entire croissant into his mouth while struggling to open the butter with one hand. The glass dish had a small sealing top and it was wedging up slowly after Ed pinched the dish between his thighs to keep it steady. When it popped free Ed dropped it into the blankets and shoved half a croissant in. He ate in large hungry bites managed only by the low energy chewing and swallowing. Ed's hunger seemed greater than his body's strength, and Hohenheim found it disgusting how much butter Ed found acceptable in his mouth.

"I can't remember how I got here," Ed said, mouth full of food and all words significantly muffled and difficult to understand. After the call Hohenheim returned to the chair alongside the bed and watched Ed. "I don't remember anything." Hohenheim brought the remainder of the croissants because Ed had eaten those on the dish. Ed took them eagerly now that he knew whose food he was eating. "I don't remember anything but speaking to you last night after I was already here." Hohenheim did not forward the way they had met. He watched Ed smear half a croissant up and down the inside of the butter dish until it was yellow. "And I don't remember what we talked about."

"It wasn't much," Hohenheim said. Ed fell silent while he was chewing and Hohenheim studied the pink tinge creeping into Ed's cheeks. "Edward, I think you're growing a fever." Ed ignored this with a grunt. His zeal for eating had dwindled drastically after spending what little energy he had secured. Hohenheim studied the limp way Ed's flesh hand lay in the blankets, and how Ed seemed comfortable chewing with the croissant protruding from his mouth while his eyes were closed. He reached over and laid a hand on Ed's forehead with his concern mounting, but Ed slapped it off at once.

Ed spit the croissant out and spoke firmly. "Don't touch me." He lifted the half chewed bread from his chest angrily. "I am not five. I can take care of myself."

This was an unwise and immature statement. "You did a fine job last night," Hohenheim said kindly. Ed bristled, and for a moment stopped chewing to cast Hohenheim a dark look.

"Where is my automail?" The tone was accusatory.

"It wasn't with you."

"Did they not come?" Ed asked, sounding worried.

Hohenheim contemplated this. It was likely anything Ed had on him from Amestris would be removed as it was an item of the other realm. Something as simple as the boy's clothing made of leathers and cottons which existed in this world could continue. Self operating metal appendages could not. If they had come at all, they would have most likely disassembled into scraps or mounds of misshapen metal lumps about the alley. "I don't believe they did."

Ed's expression tightened with a moment of panic. His lips pinched tight and his brow furrowed into a wrinkle, before anger immerged. "Isn't that a bitch?" Ed asked, forcing a fragile happy tone. "All that work to have them put on…" the anger began returning. "And now…" Ed trailed off, voice growing faint as if collapsing to a defeated sadness. "All that work…all that time." Ed lifted his hand and dropped it onto his face to rub his temples. "It's not easy to get them, you know," Ed said irritably.

"I can imagine." Hohenheim had never seen automail surgery, or known anyone close with such appendages, but Ed's scarred and misshapen body was burned into his mind.

"It takes a lot of time and a lot of effort."

"I am sure."

"I really liked mine." Ed dropped his hand back to the bed. "I've had them for years, almost as long as we've had our teacher. So I am not…so I am used to having them!"

"When did you get a teacher?"

Ed's anger over his automail disappeared with the change in topic, and new mild irritation bloomed. "After mom died. Al and I studied Alchemy with her to bring mom back."

"That's surprising."

Ed met Hohenheim's gaze with bitter hatred. "Gotta learn from someone." Ed's voice was dripping with resentment. "And I didn't have any parents left."

"I meant I find it surprising she'd teach you such a taboo. Understanding human transmutation largely results from experiencing human transmutation and I find it surprising a human would teach another human such a thing after witnessing such violence first hand."

Ed jerked upright with insult. "Did you just call her a human?" Ed demanded angrily. He slapped the remaining croissant off the bed before lifting his sole hand into a disapproving point. "Get one thing straight Hohenheim, like it or not part of you is human, so you don't have the right to refer to us as anything external from yourself, and _certainly_ not anything less. Most humans don't abandon their families with reckless disregard. And my teacher didn't teach us human transmutation. She was furious when she found out what we'd done. She helped us remember how small we are. I am not being metaphorical."

"Why do you feel a need to clarify this with me?" Hohenheim asked, puzzled with Ed's defensive tone. Ed was behaving like a guilty child fearful of the closest adult. "I don't think you did anything nearly as offensive as Human Transmutation to end up here, and I've never had the heart to punish you, even when you were little."

"Yes you did!" Ed snapped, jerking his hand back up the bit it had lowered. Hohenheim looked at the tiny finger pointing at him. "And don't give me that 'heart' bullshit when you freaking walked out on us!"

"I did not," Hohenheim said with confusion.

"You did so!" Ed yelled, before pointing to his own face. "And you slapped me in the face!" Hohenheim was stunned with this accusation, but his confusion lit a fire under Ed. _"You neglectful piece-of-crap excuse for a father Hohenheim!" _Ed shoved the dish off the bed as well. "Just get away from me!"

Then Hohenheim remembered.

It was late. The day was early autumn. Ed was in Hohenheim's study where the boy didn't belong. Trying to get into things he shouldn't. Trying to read things he didn't want the boy to read. _He didn't want his son to become like him_. With the boys the fear they'd discover or manage dangerous alchemy was strong and Trisha shared it. Hohenheim feared the unknown and haunting thought that something of the blackness inside him may now be in them. That into Trisha's womb he had left behind the death and sin that made him, and like nutrients Edward and Alphonse had absorbed it.

That night, finding Ed in his office, holding books that were instructions to death he panicked. He had taken the book away and slapped Ed's face when he argued. Ed wanted to know where he had been, where he was going, and why what was written in a book was more important than all of them.

Ed was six, it was the last time he had returned to the farmhouse.

"What kind of father slaps their own son in the face!" Ed was furious.

"The kind who wants one with all four limbs," Hohenheim said firmly. His words were painfully accurate, and Ed silenced with disbelief.

Ed wasn't expecting Hohenheim to remember. He wasn't expecting an explanation. It was easier to hate the act than to understand it.

He found himself falling to an emotional level of uselessness with nothing to say. Hohenheim waited through this familiar routine. Since Ed learned to speak he would take thoughtful bouts of silence best described as periods of mental contemplation to bridge his theories or strengthen his arguments. Once done, Ed returned with vigor, and was often harder to verbally combat than before. Until Ed felt he was done with a topic, he could be relentless and that was why Trisha, to Hohenheim's knowledge, never gave up her stool punishment. When Ed would not stop arguing with her she would ask him if he wanted to sit there, and he silenced.

Edward was a very deliberate child, and seemed to have developed into a very deliberate persnickety person. Trisha had also learned to handle this by ending her sentences with _'not one word,'_ but Hohenheim had never been able to do so. Edward seemed compelled to communicate, and he didn't feel he had the authority to stop that.

Hohenheim gestured to the croissant which lay on the floor. "Would you like anymore?" he asked.

Ed disregarded this and tossed cold eyes to Hohenheim. "I need pants," Ed said, tone flat, "_which fit me._" Ed wanted out of the previous conversation. Hohenheim could feel it. Ed wanted out of the bed, out of the apartment, and away from him. Ed wanted to get up and be free.

"You can't stand," Hohenheim said with some confusion. "What good would they be?" In response to this question Ed raised his upper lip and bared his teeth like a wild dog. It was a rude facial expression and Hohenheim was surprised.

There was a knock at the door and Hohenheim stood to answer it. "Try not to make such scary expressions for our guest Edward." Ed was disgusted and ignored this comment.

Doctor Graham Gratter was a well known scholar in their area, and he greeted Hohenheim in a warm hug. "Doctor Hohenheim!" Graham cheered, entering quickly. "I do hope you're not ill. I was surprised to get such a call." Early sixties, Doctor Gratter wore dark colored respectable clothing. "I came right away, and I saw Christopher on my way up." Graham slapped his hand affectionately to Hohenheim's bicep. With age Graham was now less than half Hohenheim's height. "He's looking nice and healthy, but he did flash me a worried glance. I think that boy has taken quite a fix to you." Graham laughed.

Hohenheim had met Graham in one of the largest libraries in Berlin. Unable to find the book he was looking for he had asked a librarian. She became anxious when he disclosed the topic he was seeking. The world was becoming dangerous, and from behind Hohenheim Graham had laughed when the man heard him ask for it. "Well now," Graham had said, smiling brightly. "If I recall correctly our wise politicians have banned such literature to the public." The librarian scurried off after the word banned, and Hohenheim considered the short tottering man standing in Europe holding an armful of books. "Want to get a cup of coffee?" Graham had asked. "You can never have too many educated friends."

In fact Graham was educated, and probably more so than the German people knew. He had the practical mind of a scientist and was quickly filtering through the useless theories of the old era and developing those for the new. This was his most attractive quality to Hohenheim. Coincidentally, and conveniently, Graham was also the finest doctor he'd met in the country.

Hohenheim locked the door behind them and gestured they enter. "No, no I am feeling all right," he reassured. Graham entered rubbing at his receding head of cotton ball white hair. "May I get you anything?"

Graham smiled ear to old wrinkled ear. "I think the question is, may I get you anything Doctor Hohenheim," Graham said warmly. "I can't stay long, not long at all, but I came right away."

Hohenheim indicated the day bed which was set further in the apartment and Graham's smile fell with a bit of surprise when he noticed Ed inside it. "A new recruit?" Graham teased, hiding his surprise well. "My my." Graham walked to the day bed and dropped his black bag at his feet. "Still taking in those in need are we?" Ed glanced inquisitively to Hohenheim, but Hohenheim ignored this with a polite smile. After stealing the lives of thousands in order to exist, occasionally offering a piece of bread or bed to those nearly dying seemed a small charity.

Hohenheim retrieved the chair he'd been using and brought it closer for Graham to take a seat. Deliberately he was slow in doing so. He was curious as to whether Ed would speak and assume the bit of authority his age granted him, or if he would wait while in this new world._ His son did not disappoint._

Ed extended a weak hand to Graham as soon as the man was close enough. "I am Edward Elric." Ed introduced himself with the firmest tone he could manage.

Graham offered a candid nod and took a seat. "I am Doctor Gratter." Graham gave Ed's hand a casual shake. "What happened to you then Mr. Elric?"

Hohenheim felt a leap of surprise when he heard the phrase 'Mr. Elric' fall appropriately from Graham's lips. It was received comfortably by Ed, but somehow Hohenheim felt slighted with the adult reference to his son. While he was proud Ed had not been too intimidated to assume the lead, he also felt robbed. He had known, perhaps from the moment he hefted Ed into his arms and out of the German snow, that his son was no longer the small toddling child he once was, and in many ways was a man. As a scientist he understood this, and as a scientist he scolded himself for feeling caught off guard, and somehow cheated when the rest of the world acknowledged it. Edward was no longer such a small boy he could be referred to by his abbreviated first name without it being disrespectful. In Amestris Edward had been living at this age long enough he was accustomed to assuming command for himself as Edward Elric, and Hohenheim did not forward the fact they were related. Edward believed himself to be Mr. Elric, a distinguished state alchemist carrying only her name, and conducted himself as such.

"If I exert myself too fully, I feel a searing pain in my chest," Ed said, poking the center of his chest for explanation.

Graham placed a hand on Ed's chest and carefully felt for damage. "Can you sit up son?" Ed was thoughtfully still before pressing his hand down into the bed to begin pushing himself up. He managed a few inches and then Graham helped. He grasped Ed gingerly, cautious of undiagnosed injuries and helped raise him until Ed was sitting. "Let's get this shirt up then." Graham gestured Ed lift it.

Ed brought his hand to his mouth and bit the sleeve of the cuff. Without assistance Ed used his mouth to hold the sleeve tight, slid his arm out, and lifted the sweater up and over his head. It was a fluid movement born of skilled practice, and Graham glanced to Hohenheim and gave his eyebrows a hike in silent acknowledgement.

Ed dropped the shirt to his lap with a sigh and waited. For a moment Graham adjusted his wire thin glasses with fascinated regard for the missing right arm, deep scars, and odd way Ed's shoulder had responded. Even here in Germany amputation was no stranger, but Ed did not have the smooth cut of a Doctor's blade. His wounds had not healed in a leveled fashion as would be provided proper treatment. His arm had been ripped out and dissolved inward. His body was used to the automail port and the weight of a metal appendage changing the way it looked without it.

"It happened a long time ago," Ed said, breaking Graham's stare. "My left leg is missing as well." Graham cleared his throat and flashed Hohenheim another quick hike of his eyebrows. He did not comment on Ed's injuries or the direct way in which Ed addressed them.

"How long has he been here Hohenheim?" Graham asked, reaching back to Ed's chest and pressing gently. Ed glanced between Hohenheim and Graham quickly. This was a question Ed could have answered, but it was handed off to Hohenheim. Ed's interest was in his exam and he watched Graham's fingers prod gently into his true ribs.

"Since last night," Hohenheim said, watching intently. "But there are no wounds I can see. I dressed him and he doesn't appear to be injured."

Ed's expression darkened when he heard this, and Graham reached to his bag and slipped a stethoscope on. "Your chest is your only complaint than, Mr. Elric?" Graham asked, placing the diaphragm on Ed's chest.

Ed cracked a smile. "Not unless you have an arm and a leg in that black bag."

Graham found this humorous and gave a brief chuckle. He slipped a hand around to Edward's back to stabilize him and moved the diaphragm about his chest.

Hohenheim observed silently. Ed was extremely obedient, and more docile than he'd seen the boy. It fascinated him how Edward interacted with Graham, and how hate free that interaction seemed.

"Breath deeply for me son," Graham said, listening intently as Ed took a few careful breaths. They were calculated and slowly controlled. After a moment Graham sat back with a perplexed expression. He brought a hand to his glasses and adjusted them thoughtfully before waving quickly for Edward to lie back down. "Lay down young man, lay down," Graham said, with a natural impatience. Ed obeyed as fast as he was able, which was quite slow. With only one arm he moved his pillow before beginning an organized shifting of his weight to return to his back. Immediately Graham swept the blanket to Ed's hips and replaced the diaphragm. "Mr. Elric the center of your chest sounds injured," Graham said, adapting a tone of mild annoyance. The man rubbed down the manubrium center of Ed's chest before to his stomach and pressed carefully. "You sound deeply congested."

"When I inhale a lot, it hurts," Ed said, watching Graham investigate his navel.

Graham abandoned Ed's stomach and gently grasped Ed's chin. Ed opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue. "Did you breathe anything funny boy?" Graham asked, tilting Ed's head about to better see his tonsils. Ed gave a tiny nondisrupting shake of his head. Graham retrieved a small mouth mirror and slipped it into Ed's mouth. "Just keep your throat relaxed, don't try and swallow. I want to see your throat." Ed muffled a short noise of protest and lifted his hand uneasily.

"Edward, he's a very good doctor," Hohenheim reassured, sensing Ed's discomfort.

"Hohenheim his chest sounds awful. Where did you get him?" Graham asked, prodding about in Ed's mouth.

"Not too far from here in fact." Hohenheim kept it vague, but Graham wasn't fooled. He paused in his work and lifted his gaze with disapproval. _Was there so little trust?_

"The center of his chest sounds damaged inside, as if he inhaled a strong toxin or was struck with a very hard object and is recovering." Graham retracted the mouth mirror and sat back. "But his skin shows no signs of abuse." Ed swallowed heavily and licked his lips before flexing his jaw. "I've had to look at a few lads over chimney sweep jobs, but he's missing so many pieces, I am stumped as to what he could have done." Graham gestured at Ed with developing irritation the conclusion was something Ed simply wasn't disclosing. "It's most perplexing." Graham pulled a thermometer from his bag and gave it a shake. "You don't remember smelling anything unusual Mr. Elric?" Graham asked.

"No," Ed whispered.

"You do something you don't want to tell me about?"

Ed gave his head a shake. "No."

Graham slipped the thermometer into Ed's mouth and gave Hohenheim a heavy sigh. "Well, from one doctor to another, I am coming up bare handed Hohenheim," Graham said wearily, with a tone disconcerted with the absent diagnosis. "How long do you plan on keeping him?" Hohenheim didn't know how to answer this. "Is he eating?"

"He had some croissants with me this morning."

"Drinking?"

"I can make him some tea."

Graham gave an encouraging nod and raised Ed's thermometer to read it. "Slight fever," he said unenthusiastically. "Mr. Elric, I can't seem to figure out the root of your vexing ailment," Graham said, leaving a pause for Ed to forward some information. "What's the last thing you ate?"

"Um…" Ed trailed off. "Croissants."

"Give me the last thing you ate before this morning and how much you've been sleeping. Have you been ill this winter?" Ed didn't know how to answer these questions and his brow tightened with unease

"No, I…don't think I've been sick," Ed said uncertainly. "And I usually…sleep about…" Ed glanced toward the wall thinking quickly. "Maybe seven hours a day. With work probably seven, and then close to eleven on days when I am not working, or when I am traveling I sleep more. I sleep on the train."

Graham was confused with these answers and gave Ed a stern glare. "You sleep on the train?" Graham asked skeptically. Trains were too expensive for urban beggars, and with much of the building tension in Europe, unnecessary travel was not allowed. In Munich this answer did not translate into the state of political turmoil and Graham narrowed his eyes with agitation for what could only be lies. "And where is it your work Mr. Elric?" Ed opened his mouth to answer, and then promptly shut it. "How about what you ate, and how much you've slept this week. When did you chest first start bothering you?"

"I am not sure what I ate," Ed said, becoming annoyed. "And probably close to seven hours each night this week. My chest started bothering me today."

Graham's expression recoiled with rising agitation and this tightened a wrinkle in his brow which ran from the tip of his nose to the mid of his forehead. "Mr. Elric I have a low tolerance for your lying young man." Graham's tone was nothing to sneeze at and Ed was flabbergasted. Ed tugged his sheet a bit higher and lifted his eyebrows with a bit of shock. "I expect you to be grateful for this roof over your head." Graham pointed toward the ceiling. "And free medical care." Graham pointed to Hohenheim next. "Now answer me honestly boy."

"How would you even know if I was lying?" Ed asked, aghast but quickly becoming frustrated himself. Hohenheim became a bit nervous. He wasn't certain how Edward was accustomed to treating other business men. He felt unsure how to intervene if Ed became too rude, or if Graham became confused with Ed's unintentional conflict with Germany's customs. "I am not comfortable being accused of dishonesty Doctor Gratter," Ed said, using a tone Hohenheim had never heard before. It was the tone of an educated and commanding individual used to being able to give commands based on expert power. Edward's tone seemed too old for his tiny body and youth. "And considering how briefly you've known me I find it assuming and unprofessional."

Graham was shocked with this statement and leaned forward placing himself eye level with Ed. "I will not be talked to this way by an ill youth who will not admit to whatever caused his illness. Do you think you are the first young man to have a case of the 'I-Can't-Remembers' Mr. Elric?"

"I thought qualified Doctors could diagnosis their patients without the patient's assistance," Ed snapped. "What would be your approach if I were unconscious? Viral contagion?"

Graham reached up and snatched the glasses from his face with outrage. "Young man, do you want the strap?" he asked angrily.

Ed didn't understand the question. For a moment he lay frowning with confusion before giving a nod. "If it will make my chest feel better, yes."

Hohenheim saw Graham's look of amazement before it bled over with anger and he quickly interrupted. "Graham he has a fever," Hohenheim said, stepping up and laying a hand on the man's shoulder. "I don't think he's following the conversation well." Ed's head jerked up with umbrage, but wisely, Ed seemed to at last grasp the concept there was a blossoming miscommunication he couldn't understand. Graham stood up with a loud insulted snort. "Let me make you some tea, please. I am sure it's been tough for him."

Graham shot Ed a look of disapproval before sighing heavily. "The only thing I can diagnosis is significant weakening of the lungs, as if by toxin, although he shows no contamination, or by that of a brunt object through he shows no wound impact." Graham gave his fist a shake to illustrate the heartiness of the tool. "He should have horrible bruising and broken ribs. This type of internal injury takes some time to heal and often the external can help gauge recovery. What he has, sounds very much like temporary or agitated damage to his lungs." Ed pulled the quilt up and covered his chest while listening.

"I can keep him here as long as he's recovering," Hohenheim reassured, gesturing they move to the kitchen. Graham flicked his wrist forward and checked his watch.

"No heavy activity or strenuous movement. Harsh breathing will lead him to a coughing fit and it's likely he'll bring up blood and healing tissue. Until he is much closer to healing, I won't need to see him again." Graham turned to Ed. "Rest and stay seated or laying down. Get plenty of fluids." Graham returned his gaze to Hohenheim. "I assume you'll feed him?" Hohenheim gave a nod and humored smile. "Listen to me, telling you what you already know." Graham broke a quick laugh. "He's the most obstinate one you've brought home; I'll give you that Hohenheim. My advice would be to chastise his insolence or send him packing." Graham indicated his watch. "But I must be going. I interrupted my schedule when I took your call."

"I apologize." Hohenheim followed Graham to the door. "I hope I haven't burdened you." Graham waived this off and paused his departure in the threshold.

"Is there anything else you need from me then?"

Hohenheim thought on this briefly. _There was. _"Actually, if it's not too great a bother, I was wondering if you might know how I could secure a wheelchair for a while." He looked back to Ed, but Ed closed his eyes tightly the moment he heard the word. Wheelchair: It felt like a death sentence.

"Of course, of course." Graham waived this off. "I'll have my man bring one by and instruct Chris to bring it up for you. I have one very close I can lend. Very close." Hohenheim laughed when Chris was volunteered. "On that note I wonder if you might be kind enough to stop by my office later this week and take a look at some of the things I've been working on, hm? As one doctor to another?"

Hohenheim smiled warmly. "You know I can always stop by for a friend."

"Maybe your interests will move to medicine, instead of dreary politics." Graham laughed and Hohenheim joined. He let Graham out and locked the door before returning all attention to Ed.

Ed was lying quietly in the bed staring out the window with a hand absently rubbing his chest. Outside the sky was gray and it looked as if it would snow again. Last night's flurries had left a thick powder all about the city and if it snowed again so soon, there would be at least two feet of it.

Hohenheim called to the boy. "Edward?" Ed ignored him. "Do you remember being hit, on the other side? Perhaps, a wound there carried over with you, possibly not fully healed or very fresh?" Ed shook his head slowly. "Anything at all? Perhaps—were you sick?" Ed gave the same slow shake of his head and Hohenheim felt discouraged. He had known Graham for several years, and twice he had brought unrelated injured parties to him. Graham was masterfully skilled, and this was the first time he had seen the man unable to diagnosis an ailment. He had to believe this unknown variable came with Ed from Amestris. "Well, in due time it will become clear anyway, and it won't be important any longer," he reassured, waiting by the door. Graham was relatively close and his 'man,' or personal butler, had a knack for speed. He expected the wheelchair within the next half hour. "Do you need anything Ed?" he asked, trying to read the signs he knew his son was exhibiting, but they were foreign to him. Long ago the boys used to cry, and every time Trisha knew what for and what to do. This same secret knowledge was never granted to him. One cry sounded like all cries, and it had always seemed to him the needs and wants of children followed no rhyme or reason. "Ed?" he probed. "How about something to drink?"

"Please just leave me alone," Ed said softly, increasing the strength of his rubbing. Hohenheim watched Ed's chest move under the pressure and tried to imagine what could have internally damaged Ed without touching him externally. Graham seemed to suspect the only possible thing, which was fumes entering in the lungs.

"Could you have smelled something noxious or hazardous before crossing?" he asked.

Ed ignored his question. "Do they have automail in this world?"

"Well…" The answer was both yes and no. Of course they had something for those unfortunate enough to loose limbs, but no they were not the tools Ed was familiar with.

In less then thirty minutes a familiar knock came to the door and Hohenheim knew it was Chris. He answered, cracking it only slightly, and Chris stood in the hall looking worried.

"Hey," Chris said uneasily. "Is he okay? I mean, I didn't think you needed to call a doctor. He looked fine last night." Chris had brought the wheelchair and Hohenheim took it as Chris spoke.

"It was just a precaution." Chris was surprised with this because doctors were not called in this section of town unless it was important. Free service from doctors when nothing was certain was even more astounding. "Chris, may I ask a favor?" Hohenheim asked. Chris had his eyebrow raised and was temporarily mute with Hohenheim's uncharacteristically rash behavior. "May I borrow some of your clothes, I am afraid mine are a bit too big."

"A bit too big?" Chris laughed, but Ed's head snapped up and Hohenheim felt Ed's angry stare on his back. "Sure thing."

"Thank you." Hohenheim offered a kind smile and shut the door with Chris on his way into the parallel apartment. He brought the wheelchair in and turned to Ed before halting with the angry glare fixed on him.

"A bittoo big," Ed repeated angrily. "Just wait till I get out of this bed!" Ed pointed to the door. "And who's that! Why were they here last night?" Hohenheim broke a kind laugh with Ed's flustered appearance. "What?" Ed demanded, becoming angry. "What's funny? Stop laughing old man." Hohenheim tried to keep his laughter to a minimum and managed to reduce it to polite chuckling.

"Still the same Edward I remember." Ed was even more disgusted with this common expression of acquaintance and shot Hohenheim a dirty look. "His name is Christopher. He is a glassworker and shares the upstairs with me. It is just mine and his apartment occupied above a bakery. The third is vacant." Hohenheim pushed the wheelchair alongside the day bed, and Chris returned before he even had it parked. Then, with Chris curious to sneak a peek, he politely took the small bundle of clothing from Chris's arms and shut the door.

Ed was eager for clothing, and immediately reached for the linens Hohenheim set at his side. Quickly Ed separated the provided shirt and dragged it to his lap. He laid it over his thighs quickly and, working with his single hand, separated the front and back to slide his arm inside before stopping abruptly as if he were interrupted. Hohenheim met the dark gaze Ed lifted with confusion, but Ed was quick. "I dress myself," Ed said firmly, pausing with the shirt tight in grasp. "I don't want your help, and I don't expect you as a spectator either."

Hohenheim left the side of the bed and walked to the kitchen window. Outside the snow was several feet high on the near building's roof. Below the ice made the cement roof tiles look like glass slabs, the metal pipe wrapping upward and out of sight was all but frozen. "Edward, I am going to make you some tea," Hohenheim said, leaving to his cupboard. Inside he had three tins full of leaves. One was a common and cheap German Schwarztee, the second and third imported and expensive. He chose a Fruchttee, he'd purchased while in Oslfriesland and put the kettle on before stepping from the kitchen to check on the boy.

Edward was dead asleep where he lay with Christopher's shirt in his grasp. Hohenheim was not expecting this and for a moment studied Ed skeptically before approaching.

Ed's mouth was draped open and the boy's snoring was soft but audible. It seemed the morning's events were too exhausting and Edward slept straight to the evening.

* * *

Thank you everyone, that was chapter 3!

This was the first scene with real Ed/Hoho interaction. Please let me know what you thought! Was it what you expected? Can you feel what it is like to meet again from either perspective? How do you think things will progress?

If you can, leave a review! - I appreciate every comment more than you know -

Chapter 4: _Honey Bee_ will be posted next Friday 1/25/13.


	4. Honey Bee

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Four  
_Honey Bee_

- mirage -

When Ed finally awoke Hohenheim was in the kitchen making pork chops. Hohenheim heard the squeak of the day bed and stepped into the main room in time to watch Ed raise a hand to his face and rub sleepily at his eyes. Ed scrubbed the right thoroughly before moving to the left and yawning.

"Hohenheim?" Ed called, voice faint, and barely above a whisper. He glanced about the apartment with half asleep curiosity, and relaxed on sight of Hohenheim's tall frame near the dinner table. "What time is it?"

"Late," Hohenheim said, studying Ed's pale expression. "I am making pork chops for supper."

"Oh?" Ed pulled Christopher's shirt upward to his shoulders and began single handedly pulling his head through the neck hole. Curiously Hohenheim watched Ed struggle to drag the shirt to his shoulders with the anticipation of one watching a cork approach its pop from a bottle. Ed tugged at the cotton and wiggled his arm in with a heavy breath before pulling it down his chest and stomach with a satisfied smile.

"How's the fit?" Hohenheim asked.

Ed gave his stomach an approving rub. "Not too bad."

Hohenheim returned to the kitchen and continued mashing the potatoes he'd peeled and boiled. "I was sleeping all day?"

"Yes."

"Just one day, right? I saw you this morning?" Ed's voice became a bit strained.

"Yes."

The change in Ed's voice and sound of his labored breath brought Hohenheim quickly to the kitchen threshold. Finding Edward here in Germany was like discovering the front door to his Resembool farmhouse in a snow covered Munich alley. It brought a sense of assaulting invasion as much as a responsibility he wasn't certain he ever remembered having. It was the responsibility for the two life forms he had created with Trisha. As if the palpable human world drew him into a form of Nuclear Fusion and Nuclear Fission faster than he could comprehend, and somehow with the use of his own participation. From the weighted unit nucleus of himself and Trisha, split the two smaller nuclei of Edward and Alphonse, and like a scientist staring in through a microscope, he felt both the technical concern of a researcher whose subjects are in danger, and the heart and soul of his human self raging for possession of its offspring. _How could he explain this to Edward?_ He had never been strong with the human attributes he still had left. So he did not feel he could tell Ed he feared Ed's proton quantity changing him into a different chemical element when he wanted them to stay the same. It was his first thought when Trisha handed him a living blanketed bundle of soft and shriveled human skin covered in the liquid of her womb.

_It was being blessed_.

And then the baby began to cry.

_It was being doomed_.

And she decided the best name for him: Edward.

In the day bed Ed was kicking the quilt down himself before shoving the loose pants off next. "Stay in the kitchen!" Ed yelled, fussing to get his ankle free from the blankets. Hohenheim didn't answer and watched Ed curl his flesh leg up to his chest in order to work the ankle of Christopher's pants onto it with one hand. The way Ed's severed thigh lay heavy and abandoned was intense. The leg had been cut at such an odd place, too high to be knee, and too low to be anything else but mid thigh. Somehow Ed had half a thigh, and like the shoulder the bottom was rippled with scars and misshapen lumps as if someone had tried to hack Ed's leg off with a La Gradina marble chisel.

With Ed rocking his hips from side to side as he pulled his pants up, Hohenheim returned to the potatoes and flavored them with butter. He lowered the heat on the pork chops and, confirming with a quick peek Ed was now settled, approached the boy.

Ed lay in the sheets recovering from his exertion wearing a disinterested look of mild irritation. He was none too impressed with Hohenheim's arrival. Wearing a white undershirt and brown corduroy pants, Christopher's clothing was still two sizes too big making Ed look small and slimsy.

"Ed, let's get you up," Hohenheim said kindly. He gestured to the wheelchair but Ed ignored it and bristled with offense. "Edward." _They had to be practical about things._ Hohenheim reached down and gently placed a hand on Ed's bony shoulder. "You've been in my care since last night." He offered a kind smile. "You're going to have to use the facilities sooner or later."

Ed's disposition didn't improve. "Don't lift me anymore," Ed commanded. He pressed his hand to the mattress and slowly raised his top half. "I move myself, understand?" Hohenheim didn't see how Ed thought he'd get himself from the bed. "Just bring the chair to the side." Ed jutted his chin toward the space at his bedside and Hohenheim angled the chair there. "I don't want you carrying me about, got it?" Ed asked, backing his hips to the side of the bed. "I can still move under my own power." Hohenheim didn't think what Ed was capable of could really be defined as moving. He found it very hard to keep his hands on the chair when Ed neared the edge of the bed while so unstable.

Quickly, Ed deliberately pushed to rock his top half away from the edge of the bed, and with his flesh arm free of its constant requirement to help hold him up, reached back and secured a tight grip on the arm of the wheelchair. Stable and now attached to the chair, Ed pulled himself backward with the intent to drag himself right into it. Hohenheim was amazed and was so consumed with watching Ed move his body, he didn't notice the strained expression on Ed's face until the boy was starting to sweat. Immediately he reached to help Ed transfer his weight, but Ed snapped at him. "Don't!" Ed ordered, beginning fast heavy pants. "I can do it! _Don't touch me!_" Ed said viciously. "I am not kidding Hohenheim. I don't want you to touch me." Hohenheim retracted his hand with a heavy swallow.

Ed was a dog nearly foaming at the mouth. There was an intense and intimidating emotion trying to rear its head, and Ed was struggling to keep it from doing so. However confusing it seemed to Hohenheim, he understood they were existing at a place directly below Ed's breaking point, and that it was only Ed's harmless appearance which implied, in a very misleading way, that his raw, and weakly contained rage, could not truly exist when it did.

Ed was determined, and ignored Hohenheim completely while dragging himself slowly, toiling with the dead weight of his body, to the edge of the seat. Here Ed paused, panting heavily and glancing about himself to confirm he was properly aligned before kicking fast, with his flesh leg, and knocking himself back into chair.

It was impressive.

Ed collapsed, heaving breaths, in a limp slump within the chair. "See?" Ed whispered, when he felt able.

With his eyes closed and his mouth hanging open, Ed was deep in recovery before he lifted his hand and rubbed at his face. He was coming back to the moment and realizing how much moving to the chair had taken out of him. Again his hand was trembling and his stomach had tightened with illness. Ed looked at the vacant day bed and the two feet of space he'd crossed. His healthy leg still lay on the mattress, and it was disturbing to the most horrific degree to think he couldn't easily, or even safely, manage a two foot space. _What had happened to him?_ Cautiously he brought his hand to his chest and felt his sternum. He had pain springing from below the bone as surely as if his lungs had a tumor rooting outward from the very center. It was sucking everything up: his breath, his energy, his strength. Ed dropped his hand to the arm of the wheelchair and tried to relax. He tried to blame his weakened state on his travels, on the search for the stone, on whatever must have been happening to send him here, but he was haunted with the terrifying idea it was this world. That here in this place, this Edward, was so weak he could barely move. Amestris would represent the opposite, where he'd done more moving than he even thought possible. Just the hinting idea he could no longer do so brought a dizzying nausea.

Hohenheim reached down and rested a hand in Ed's hair. Ed's bullheaded strength made him smile with pride, but Ed was oblivious. Ed was staring off at nothing and had gone completely silent. Gently Hohenheim ran his hand backward pulling Edward's bangs from his face and caressing them into Ed's hair. "I used to do this when you were younger," he said softly, repeating the movement in a soft stroking manner. _Repeating an action he'd done a decade ago was so powerful he could almost smell the fields of Resembool._ "At home."

"Hm." Ed made a small sound of acknowledgement and lifted his gaze slightly. "Home," Ed repeated thoughtfully. He spoke the word softly in a longing tone before his mind felt assaulted with images that exploded into place as violently as if he'd been shoved face first into a projector. Ed winced with the sudden mental rape. There was the distinctly sweet smell of laundry drying in the wind, the heat of the summer sun, the blue sky of Resembool, and the crickets at night. He felt the sinus tickle from Winry's natural scent, heard the sound of Alphonse's armor, the bustle of Central's city, and the baritone of Roy's voice. Home was a mental collision of life, _his life_, and Ed clenched his eyes when he felt his chest spark as if a bomb had detonated. It rippled a paralyzing pain into his ribcage, collapsed it inward, and crippled his entire frame by destroying his enterprise at the core.

Hohenheim straightened with surprise when Ed suddenly bent himself in half and pressed his forehead to his knees. "Ed?" he asked with concern. He turned the wheelchair to face him and found Ed's tight expression alarming. Ed's features had twisted up into a permanent wince, and Ed covered his face with a shaking hand. Hohenheim knelt down in panic. "Ed, are you in pain?" he asked, grasping the boy's shoulders to lift him. Ed wanted nothing to do with this, and fought to keep himself firmly bent. Ed choked, a loud and grunting sound through his open lips, and although Hohenheim had never heard it before, it was recognizable the way human sounds were recognizable. With that fist cry of deep sorrow Hohenheim relaxed to give the boy space.

Ed's breath was rapid, and directly after the harsh choke, Ed began a deep whining. It was a stomach clenching sound, and it came again, and louder, before Ed broke an audible sob. Even in hysteria he was ashamed. He closed his fingers over his eyes to hide the sudden rush of tears, but his exposed mouth twisted in anguish.

"Edward," Hohenheim whispered, sliding his hand to Ed's back and rubbing gently. "It's going to be okay." He hadn't any skill comforting the boy. When Edward was younger Trisha used to lift him to her shoulder and rub her cheek affectionately into the side of the boy's small head until Edward could meet her gaze. She said this was Nuzzling, and Hohenheim found the act simply breathtaking in its beauty. In comparison he had never been able to stop the boys from crying. They wanted only their mother. With Edward now much older, the path to comfort seemed even more obscure, and he was left with their fundamental relationship being Edward's discomfort with them even touching.

Edward's tears became rough very quickly and developed into a form of blubbering hysterics. They were hard for him to handle and Ed was straining out his breaths in frame rattling heaves of sobbing as if he were pushing his tears up from his stomach. The crying looked painful and this frightened Hohenheim. "Edward, listen to me," he said, placing some strength in his voice. "You need to relax; you don't seem strong enough to do this now."

Ed yelled in response to this. It was a true cry of anger, and one that allowed Hohenheim to detect the shrill pitch that was common only in Edward's childhood voice and had gone all but dormant with his increase in age. While still young Edward learned loud bawling made him a spectacle and stopped when he was six. To Hohenheim's knowledge, Alphonse never figured this out, even with Edward limiting himself to short screaming outbursts.

"Edward, I know you are upset."

Ed let out another sharp cry and tipped his face to his knees in order to free his hand and slap Hohenheim away. Hohenheim withdrew with confusion. Ed was waving for him to leave, inhaling as fast as he could, and sobbing out every ounce of breath.

"Ed, this is not good for you," Hohenheim said, adapting a stern worried tone. Ed's body seemed to be collapsing in on itself, with shoulders pulled in tight, and everything not involved in sorrow limp and weighted with fatigue. "Ed!" Hohenheim grabbed Ed's shoulders and gave the boy a shake.

Ed screamed, "_What am I doing here!_" Hohenheim was stunned. "Why! Why am I here! Why!" Ed lifted his head a bit and sniffled heavily. "_Why am I here!_"

Hohenheim bent down to Ed's line of sight and tears were streaming from his son's golden eyes. They looked glazed with the water, and the expression inside them was lost. "You don't remember what happened?" he asked softly.

"_I don't remember anything!_" Ed cried. "_I don't remember anything!_"

"How the gate came? Why you went through it?" He laid his hand back in Ed's hair. His heart went out to the boy. He had assumed Ed was not sharing this memory, but to find it was missing, he could only imagine the desertion. When he had crossed he had come with his mind. The gate wanted whatever it could have, and he feared it trying to spoil his son's. "You can't remember what happened before the gate arrived?" he asked.

"No!" Ed sobbed, shaking his head in a weak disoriented fashion. "I need to get back! _I need to!_ Alphonse is on the other side!" Hohenheim felt his concern slip into pure sadness. He felt Ed's panic, and it was panic that came from frightened comprehension of how real separation was. It was born out of having very little that was real, and needing to protect what little there was._ Alphonse was on the other side, and Alphonse was all there was. _"He's over there without me! I need to go to him! I made a promise!" _Ed did not know the half of it._

Hohenheim pet his hand through Ed's hair. With Ed crying he pushed the loose strains back to keep them from Ed's face. Much of it was soiled from the alley and clumped together as it spread, but the rest shimmered freely over Ed's shoulder.

"What am I going to do?" Ed cried, sobbing to his knees.

Hohenheim felt a profound sadness and also a profound dread. He brushed his thumb across the tip of Ed's forehead and whispered a barely audible, "I am sorry." With Ed waking up to only the tip of this world's cruelty, and the realization of what had happened to him, Hohenheim felt as if he were watching himself arrive in this world years ago. He knew first hand what it felt like to be abandoned by an entire reality, and worse, what it meant to hunger so deeply you'd do anything to get back. "I am sorry Ed." This was a pain for which there was no cure. You could not open a door which responded to alchemy in a world in which alchemy didn't exist. "I am so sorry."

Ed's tears silenced.

In a state of fearful understanding every part of Ed seemed to come to a slow halt and Ed stared wide eyed down to his lap. Ed couldn't imagine the meaning behind Hohenheim's sentiment, but he imagined the worst.

Hohenheim understood the nightmare Ed imagined was faint compared to the truth, and this felt heavy on his shoulders. _Ed was going to ask him, and he was going to have to tell the boy._

"What…" Ed's voice was so weak. "…are you…" Ed was hiccupping roughly now that his tears had stopped. "What are you…" Ed sniffled, trying to get his body to cooperate again. "What are you…" Ed lifted a horrified gaze to Hohenheim's sympathetic face. "What…are you saying?"

"You understand, even if I wanted to come and see you boys…" it was painful to even talk about. "…for the longest time…I've been prisoner here as well." This was the best way to explain it. "It seems it's much easier to get in…than it is to get out."

Even in this state, Ed was coming to gain Hohenheim's meaning and implication. His eyes widened so entirely the white was almost fully exposed. Ed's golden pupils seemed to shrink inward, his skin went the color of chalk, and Hohenheim heard every breath of air leave Ed's lungs. It was an expression as close to medical shock as could be maintained while conscious.

"At the very least you're not alone here," Hohenheim said, struggling to remain optimistic for his son. "It was a little different for me I am afraid."

Ed twitched, just the slightest bit, and in a fluid quick motion jerked his head to the side and closed his eyes as if he slammed a door. He didn't want to hear anymore, and he began a slow unsteady shake of his head.

"No," Ed whispered, increasing his movement until his bangs were swinging with force. "That-that can't be true. _That can't be true_."

"I am sorry."

"_Stop saying that!"_ Ed snapped, jerking up with furious aggression. "You've never been sorry! You'venever done shit to make up for what you've done!" Ed grabbed the arm rest of the wheelchair with purpose and prepared to stand. "I've opened the door before! I can do it again!"

"Ed," Hohenheim cautioned, lifting his hands. Ed's body seemed on the verge of collapse. The boy was shaking so hard he was rattling the chair, and Ed pushed up until he was straight backed and crying.

"_I won't just stay here!_" Hohenheim tried to stop Ed when he suddenly stood. Ed was behaving as if his body had two arms and two legs. On an aged autopilot the panic and overwhelming desire to destroy the notion this last move through the gate was never leading to a next, Ed stood and moved to walk forward. He toppled into Hohenheim immediately, and Hohenheim did what he could to catch the boy. " _Get off me!_" Ed cried, trying to shove free. Hohenheim tightened his arms and held his son steady. Ed was fighting invisible demons and was kicking and swinging his fist. "No! NO!" Ed screamed arching his back and trying to get free. "I HATE YOU!"

Hohenheim closed his eyes and ignored the obscenities which started coming. Ed's convincing declarations of hate and vengeance were specifically vicious, but he knew what it was like to be so scared anger was the only sane course available. He knew what it was like to need a face to blame. To need a face to hate so everything else seemed brighter. If after all he'd done, he was sentenced to be the part Ed would hate in order to maintain his sanity and strength, than he supposed he was deserving of such a role and he would take it.

"Edward please," Hohenheim whispered, his voice faint. He'd lost it, and he didn't know when.

Ed struggled much longer than Hohenheim thought possible, and provided a wealth of vulgar phrases Hohenheim was surprised Ed had been exposed to. Ed was convinced he could argue his way out of Hohenheim's grasp, out of the fact his automail was missing, out of the apartment, the building, and straight out of the world. With his eyes closed Hohenheim remained quiet and listened as he restrained the boy until Ed suddenly vomited.

"Ed, you're making yourself ill," Hohenheim said, activating when one of Ed's jerks to move forward changed into a spasm of Ed's throat. Ed was dry heaving, and Hohenheim frantically tipped them to the side so Ed could lean over his arm and face the floor. While struggling Ed had turned in many directions but finally became ill on his side with his back to Hohenheim's chest and his leg tucked under him. "You have to relax and calm down. I am going to have to do more than suggest this soon," Hohenheim said, patting Ed's back in a quick and uneasy rhythm. Ed vomited along side of them and lay shaking and coughing with a string of bile hanging from his lips.

Briefly Hohenheim remembered Alphonse catching a stomach virus when the boy was four and it seemed horribly unfair a child so small had to suffer so greatly. Alphonse was vomiting constantly and there was little they could do but lower his fever. Holding the boy in her lap with a bowl tucked under his chin, Hohenheim remembered Trisha slowly rubbing wide circles on Alphonse's back to calm him. He imitated and began circling his hand on Ed's back as if he were polishing a large surface.

This seemed to have no effect, and as soon as Ed's stomach was under control Ed resumed crying. Hohenheim let this continue and Ed's tears were dripping from his chin and into the mess he'd spit up. "Is this my punishment?" Ed whined, sniffling heavily and wiping at his face with his flesh hand. "For what I've done?" _Ed's tone was heartbreaking._ Hohenheim felt unqualified to answer this. Suddenly he was thrust into the presumed all-knowing role of a parent, in which he was supposed to answer questions which had none. "After all I've done." Ed sobbed. "I am such a fool." Hohenheim reached up to the bed and felt about for the cloth which had been over Ed's eyes. "Alphonse will probably forgive me for going and getting myself trapped here, even though he shouldn't." Ed found this incredibly upsetting and Hohenheim felt Ed's body start shaking again. "What am I going to do?"

Hohenheim lowered the cloth to Ed, and Ed looked at it clueless with his face leaking everywhere. "Here Ed," Hohenheim said softly, moving it closer to Ed's hand when Ed lifted it in an uncoordinated wobble and grasped the rag with barely any strength. Hohenheim was concerned with this, and watched Ed's navigating hand sway unsteadily as he brought it to his face and wiped with the strength of an infant.

"Is this my punishment?" Ed whispered, ignoring Hohenheim who began helping and wiped the cloth up Ed's wet cheek to his eyes.

"Ed, get yourself around," Hohenheim said, shifting Ed in his arms. Ed was too weak to fight now and lay deathly still when Hohenheim positioned him to be cradled in his arms. Carefully Hohenheim brushed Ed's sweat soaked banks back into his hair, wiped at the boy's tears, and smeared away the snot running down Ed's face. With Ed sitting sideways in his lap he wrapped his arms about his son and held him.

"You're not being punished," he said kindly.

"I failed. The transmutation went horribly. I couldn't follow your notes." Ed's voice was raw from crying. It cracked awkwardly at the beginning and ending of every sentence, and Ed was shaking so hard Hohenheim was beginning to believe the boy was going into shock. "I lost my leg." Ed's eyes welled with fresh tears. Hohenheim laid a hand on the boy's forehead. Ed was far too warm. "Alphonse disappeared." He pulled the skin down below Ed's right eye and tried to get a look at the boy's pupil. "I couldn't reach him." In the aftermath of such incredibly hard crying Ed's chest was leaping with hiccups barely a second apart. "I put his soul in the armor and…lost my arm."

Hohenheim offered a warm smile. "I knew you put his soul in the armor the second I saw him." He pet an affectionate hand through Ed's hair. The roots were damp with sweat and the heat rising from Ed was unnatural. "You were always so resourceful."

Ed's face twisted with disgust. "You say it like it's an accomplishment!" Ed sniveled pitifully. "It was an act of desperation! To save his life! I would have given everything." Ed's eyes adapted a deep and intimidating determination. "I put a transmutation circle on every part I thought they'd want." The venom and strength in Ed's voice, and from his crippled form, was frightening. "And I..." Ed's expression slipped into one of fear. The tight brow and twisted fashion of Ed's mouth relaxed to a passive worried frown. "I remember doing that again." Ed closed his eyes trying to better grasp his own memory. "I remember drawing on my chest." Ed reached up and ever so gently touched the cotton over his heart. "It was right there on my heart…and on my head." Hohenheim watched a new set of tears squeeze from Ed's eyes and drip back over his ears into his hair. Ed's chest hitched with an unsettling breath. "_Why?_"

Hohenheim considered this information. Ed's account left plenty of holes and unknown variables. Almost any equation could be fashioned from drawing arrays, and drawing them on a human body. What was he to suggest? That Ed had wanted to call the gate? That Ed had perhaps even wanted to enter it? That Alphonse had? Hohenheim felt a moment of panic bloom. Suggesting any type of equation without a solution, and worse, one that might have possible detrimental outcomes, would leave Ed rattled and frantic. What Ed needed now was an answer. Hohenheim felt this strongly. If he could provide an answer, than he could provide peace, even if it was only temporarily. So he offered Ed the most reassuring tone he could and tried to stay positive without lying or misleading.

"When I found you last night, your body was in a state of great distress. It's possible until you're recovered, your memories won't return. Or will return slowly."

"Did he die?" Ed cut right to the chase. With what little strength Ed had he reached to Hohenheim's shirt and yanked at the lapels. "Did he die? Do you know? Did he? Did I come here trying to save him? Did I end up here offering my body?" Ed broke a wild and hysterical sob. "_You have to tell me what you know!" _Ed's body was near seizure. "Did he die! Did I try to save him! Is he dead! Is Alphonse dead!" Ed's eyes filled with new tears and Hohenheim felt his mouth dry out with these questions. _There was no way for him to know the answer_.

"That's possible," he said softly. He couldn't lie, and Ed broke out crying at once. Much of the boy's strength had been used, so it was loud weepy tears. "It's possible to escape death your soul came here again." Ed pushed his face into Hohenheim's shirt and Hohenheim went stiff. It was the last thing he expected Edward to do. His son was rubbing his face into his chest the way Trisha rubbed her cheek into the boys when she loved them. _Edward was nuzzling him_. It was the first time he had felt an act of affection from his son in years. He was certain the very last time had been when Edward was five and had reached into the grass and pulled his hand back screaming.

A honey bee as fat and fluffy as a clover blossom was wiggling its way free with its stinger deep in Edward's tiny pointer finger. From the kitchen sink Hohenheim heard Ed's crying and left running to the boy. Then, with Ed in his lap trying to get a handle on himself, Hohenheim plucked the stinger from Ed's finger while explaining how it worked. Ed was frightened with the small black bead the bee had left pumping venom, but also fascinated with the fact it had stung knowing it would die. "You see Edward," Hohenheim had said, stroking Edward's head and holding the boy's finger as carefully as he would a toothpick. "It is possible to find things in life worth dying for, and the little bee knew that." Directly after these words Ed pulled his finger from Hohenheim's grasp and turned around in the man's lap. Edward didn't speak, and his tears hadn't stopped, but Hohenheim remembered the intensity of the hug Ed gave him. Ed had wrapped strong arms about his neck and rested on his shoulder contently.

"Can I save the bee?" Ed had asked, giving a long sniffle. "If I give it back its stinger?" Hohenheim remembered how this question had warmed his heart, and he stood up squeezing his son as hard as he thought he could.

"If you can find him." He had lied, carrying Ed to the kitchen for some lemonade and a piece of the banana bread Trisha had made that morning. "If you can find him Edward."

Ed had been comforted by the fact he could save the bee, even without searching for the bee or realizing he hadn't kept the stinger. That comfort transferred from Edward into a hug Hohenheim remembered clearly as a child's thank you, and so today, with Edward pressing into his chest and wailing, he didn't think he could find the translation. Edward was acting irrationally, and it gave Hohenheim an overwhelming sense of guilt he was able to take something as precious from Edward as affection, when the boy wasn't certain he was giving it. "Edward," Hohenheim said, trying to gain the boy's attention. "But Edward, you have to consider the exchange," he said, watching the top of Edward's golden head press right and left in his shirt. "That in exchange for your life Alphonse would be alive."

"Dante said equivalent exchange is a fairy tale!" Ed cried, screaming out his words in anger before whining miserably. "She's such a bitch!" Hohenheim chuckled. _Yes, she certainly had her moments._

"You don't think it's probable your sacrifice would equate his life?" Hohenheim asked. He believed logic would be the only thing to pull Edward from his fit of sorrow. He cast it forward quickly, knowing if Edward didn't bite down on this, he'd cast again until he found bait that worked._ This could not continue._ "In what fairy tale have you read of one giving their life for another in vain?" Ed stopped rubbing his face and sniffled. "If you came here to save him, then you have succeeded, don't you think?" Ed was silent as he chewed on this idea, and Hohenheim felt a ray of hope. "Isn't that equivalent exchange?"

Ed turned his face upward and met Hohenheim's eyes. "Do you know that to be true?" Ed asked, voice shaking with uncertainty and desperation. _Ed wanted it to be_.

"It seems very likely to me," Hohenheim said, forcing simple answers absent of analytical science. Ed was not entirely convinced and his expression tensed with panic. "I promise Ed." Hohenheim felt himself struggle. He was coming so very close to lying. He couldn't be sure, and he'd never know for a fact, neither of them could. He felt himself staring at the stinger in Edward's finger. _All he had to do was tell Ed he could search for the bee._ "I am sure Alphonse is safe," he whispered. "I feel it."

Ed collapsed with these words. He exhaled everything in his lungs and let his head fall back in utter cessation. "Thank god," Ed whispered. "…thank god." Ed sniffled out a few additional tears but was calming quickly under exhaustion and peace.

"It's all right Ed," Hohenheim whispered, sweeping the boy with his eyes. Ed was sticky with perspiration, his hair was matted and damp from his body's sweat, and he smelled heavily of vomit. His frame rattling shakes were calming, but Hohenheim worried they may not be able to fade entirely. Ed's fingers were twitching unsteadily as if Ed's nerve impulses would not take rest. "Okay now?" Hohenheim asked, feeling thin ice beneath them. Edward didn't answer. He swallowed heavily collecting himself. "Now you'd be embarrassed if you could see yourself," Hohenheim teased warmly. "Let's get you a hot bath and some dinner." Ed was worn to the bone and remained silent. "You can reside with me as long as you like Edward."

"…Will you stay this time?" Ed whispered. Hohenheim heard fear and bitter hate lurking in Edward's tone. _It seemed he would never live down what he had done._

"Of course." Hohenheim ran his hand softly through Ed's tangled hair before forcing an optimistic chuckle. "This is my apartment after all." He raised his arm propping Ed into a sitting position and Ed was eager to move. Ed's flustered self consciousness was returning full force and he was embarrassed and wanted up and off. Carefully Hohenheim rose to his feet hoisting Ed's arm over his neck and supporting Ed's wobbly stance. "Does this pull your arm too much?"

"No," Ed muttered. His blonde strains were coming to hang off the center part in his hair like an old mop and Ed gave a soft toss of his head to knock them from his face. "Sorry about puking on the floor." Ed looked at his vomit with further embarrassment. The small puddle was a crude product of the awkward moment that just conspired. "I don't normally cry like this, for the record," Ed said, managing to force a bit of confidence into his voice. "This is a bad time for me."

Hohenheim began leading the way to the lavatory and cracked a half smile with this comment. Ed sounded as if he were disconnecting a phone conversation and not explaining the open burst of weeping that took him as violently as a seizure.

"That's all right," Hohenheim reassured. He was lifting Ed's weight enough to practically drag the boy and Ed was annoyed.

"This only works…when you have two legs Hohenheim. Why did you decide to do this?" Ed tipped his head to the side and wiped his right cheek on his shoulder. His face was damp with his past tears and his eyes were fat swells.

"It can work with someone shorter than you." Hohenheim knocked the lavatory door gently with his foot and let it swing open before leading Ed in.

"Alphonse was the one who inherited your height," Ed said slowly, tired but still disgusted. "Even when we were younger he was already getting taller than me." Hohenheim leaned Ed into the lavatory sink as delicately as one were propping a vase. Attached to the back wall in the right corner it had three inches of extended enamel to provide a meager shelf. The room was narrow. It was unpainted, but still housed what this part of the country considered an impressive center drain paw foot tub to the immediate left, and a soup pot sized cast iron enamel pedestal sink and toilet. Ed immediately gripped the cold surface of the sink's rim for balance and kept his leg rigidly stiff so as not to throw off his balance. "It's rather obnoxious since I am older than him."

Hohenheim reached down and turned the far brass knob on the tub. The building's plumbing was old and for a moment nothing happened. No water emerged and the effect was that of flicking a dead light switch. Quickly Hohenheim turned the knob on and off a few times before trying the cold. Immediately the pipes sputtered. They fed straight up from below and the change in pressure and stress caused the entire fixture to shake. The water burst free in a wild spurt to the sound of a loud cough and then ran smoothly. "Plumbing is more stable in Amestris," Hohenheim said. He turned the hot on and tested the warm water coming in. "Alchemy can certainly make solid piping. So I am afraid in parts of this world plumbing is either still a luxury or poorly crafted." Ed was disgusted and let his expression twist with the stomach churning repugnance this world was creating in comparison to his own. It was like being given the view of a dirty window when you were used to clean glass.

Hohenheim found Ed's expression of repulsed aggravation familiar and brightened on sight of the son he knew. "You look just like you used to wearing that expression."

"I wish you wouldn't talk about the past so much."

Hohenheim returned his gaze to the filling water and let his fingers stray under the running tap. "I am sorry Ed," he said softly. "Much of what I have is the past." He remembered the way the house he built was slightly crooked but Trisha loved it just the same. "My life and everything I valued is in the past. In your world."

"My world is still there," Ed said angrily, frantically trying to keep his strength. Ed gave a small cough trying to abandon the raspy tones of his abused throat. "Stop talking like it's not." Hohenheim didn't respond to this. Ed wasn't ready to hear the truth yet. "And Al is alive over there," Ed said, sounding cheerfully relieved and almost serene with Alphonse's safety. Hohenheim swallowed heavily. _He hated lies_. "For the times being…that's…ss…enoughs to..." Hohenheim looked up when Ed's words slurred and stopped awkwardly within his sentence. Ed's head was drooping a bit, but the boy noticed his look of alarm and became annoyed. "I am… fine."

"Do you need help undressing?"

"Get out," Ed ordered flatly.

Hohenheim shut off the water and left to the kitchen. He didn't agree to Ed tending to himself. He returned to the stove to check the pork chops and moved them to a plate before returning to the lavatory. Physics said Ed wouldn't be able to move because he lacked the ability to raise or lower himself. Ed found this revolting and looked hideously annoyed when Hohenheim returned and stood in front of the balanced, yet trapped, boy.

"My chest hurts," Ed complained, blinking slowly. "Badly, and my head feels…" Hohenheim expected as much and was not surprised. He reached to the bottom of Ed's shirt and pulled it up and off Ed's head. He left it anchored via Ed's single arm before popping the button on Ed's pants.

Ed's hips jerked as if stung by the touch. "Wha-stop_!_" Ed cried, jerking again as if he were restrained instead of incapable of moving. "I want to undress myself!" Ed was horrified with Hohenheim's presumption and his own inability to even bat the man off. "You are not to dress or undress me!" Ed rasped, chest heaving.

Hohenheim gave a slow nod. At this point he was impressed Ed was still able to talk and stand. Ed's eyes were very swollen. It seemed a chore just to keep them open. "I am sorry." Hohenheim brought his hands to Ed's rib cage and steadied him. "I'll just keep you upright."

Ed lifted his hand, the minute he didn't need it propping himself up, and gave Hohenheim's shoulder a weak scolding smack. "I undress myself, understand?" Ed asked, throwing his shirt to the floor. "Not anyone else." Ed paused to rub at his face and eyes.

Ed's chest was scrawny and Hohenheim worried about the cold apartment on Ed's unclothed body. He had planned to undress Ed quickly, so Ed moved seamlessly from warm clothing to warm water. "I don't want you to become cold Ed."

"And I'll undress at the speed I want," Ed said flatly. Even as Ed spoke his upper half gave a hearty shutter in the frigid air and Hohenheim let his displeasure show in his face.

"You've exhausted yourself."

"If there's no automail here, I am a cripple Hohenheim," Ed said angrily, before paling with the definition of his own words. Without the automail he was left unable to stand, unable to completely move himself, dress himself, or even bathe himself. It felt like a tremendous retraction in time.

Suddenly he was six again, and was in his upstairs bathroom with the white titles and fluffy yellow towels. Hohenheim was looming over him. Ed couldn't mentally deny, although he did not embrace, the fact Hohenheim had probably bathed him as a child, because the only memories he had came later when he found it uncomfortable Hohenheim would undress him. He remembered calling out for his mother.

Hohenheim was a stranger. With the travels Hohenheim was more a visitor than a father, and as a child, right before Ed remembered the man leaving, he had felt a very clear and very unsettling sense of invasion and uncertainty when Hohenheim would advance towards him. Hohenheim had seemed very tall, and very scary, so all domestic tasks from feeding to bathing were awkward with this stranger. Ed broke into tears sitting in front of the filling tub with Hohenheim undressing him. He didn't know how to get the man away from him, and he didn't know how to explain this felt unbearable, so he cried, and Trisha came.

Trisha had arrived when Ed's panic was becoming serious. The large foreign man Ed was told to obey as his father, and therefore took such liberties, was pawing clothes off his tiny body with hands the size of a bears. Trisha came looking anxious and confused Ed was crying while Hohenheim was tending to him, but arrived with empathetic acceptance. She had married her husband and given birth to her children, and from them both she wielded the intimate knowledge they shared with true mastery. Hohenheim wasn't offended when she shewed him aside and knelt down to Ed's silent tear streaked face. She brought with her the smell of baking cinnamon, and Ed remembered the clear image of her leaning forward and the way the loose strands of her hair moved over her forehead and growing smile. She brought comfort, and playfully took Ed's face in her hands and pressed his cheeks together. Whispering a rhyme about mice living in a shoe there was no part of her that was upset her son was scared of his father. With perfect patience and grace she understood what Ed needed.

Standing in Germany, cold and sick, Ed remembered his mother before he could remind himself not to. _Now was not the time. He could not handle remembering mom now._

Hohenheim felt Ed's unease through his tense body. Ed seemed to have drifted somewhere mentally, but his expression was cut to the heart. Hohenheim could see Ed's very real and very intense fear this might be the future. "Ed, people in this world loose limbs too," he reassured. Ed gave a waking blink and lifted his gaze. "I don't mind helping you if you need it."

Ed grunted with revulsion. There was something much deeper than the awkwardness of Hohenheim being allowed to become this personal. Ed was sick with the idea of reliance, and even something as insignificant as pity from Hohenheim. Yet, it stood in stark comparison to his lack of options. _There was no one else_. This would be a surrender because there would have to be tolerance.

Hohenheim sensed Ed's resigned aggravation and tried to help. "Let's consider this…temporary," he said softly. With Ed looking half alive and so fatigued it was taxing to conduct even instinctive functions such as breathing and blinking, Hohenheim could see Ed's sour illness for having to allow such intimate interaction between them. _Ed looked faint with self disgust._ Hohenheim wanted to, in any way possible; make this easier for the boy. "We'll work on getting you what we can right away," he said, keeping a calm directive tone. Ed's emotions were intense for someone so physically slighted. They felt thick and almost suffocating in the steam filling lavatory and Hohenheim wasn't going to add to them. One of them had to stay rational.

Ed lifted his single hand and popped the second button on his pants. "Juss…hold me up," Ed slurred, before swallowing heavily to correct his speech. "Just keep me steady."

Hohenheim nodded. The smell of unfinished wood was entering the air and adding the odor of the old pine. His lavatory was a mere coffin in size between all the fixtures. The bare room was neglected and never even white washed. Moisture brought out the aroma of the naked wood as powerfully as someone chopping it.

"In this world automail is only called prosthetics," Hohenheim said. "They are false limbs like yours, but are not at the performance level you know." Ed jerked his fly down in shaky uncoordinated tugs. "Still, between the two of us, I am sure we can modify something."

Once Ed finished his fly his pants dropped to a pool at his ankle and left him completely bare. Held upright Ed looked like a shark victim, and the white to his skin and limp way his hair hung separated with dirt and grease made him too sad for words. "Without the automail there is nothing I can do myself," Ed said pitifully. His tone held the cold solidarity of his fate on this side of the gate. Directly after these words Ed forced his dry throat to swallow as if physically determined to stomach this crippling stress.

"I'll help you get in," Hohenheim said, stepping back slowly so Ed would not be harshly or quickly moved while nude. He could tell his son felt incredibly vulnerable. Ed turned into a ramrod straight body of stone as soon as he stood there naked and waiting. "I'll talk you through it," Hohenheim reassured.

Ed clung to the side of Hohenheim's arm uneasily. He tried to move his leg in a way which was helpful, but being moved under the full power of a fully clothed someone else was intimidating. Undressed Ed felt nauseous with the flighty feeling of nervous shame and humiliation. _Hohenheim had taken full control of him._

"I'll lift you." Hohenheim announced his action before he began but Ed startled just the same. Ed was not hard to lift. The boy was skin and bones and curled his leg upward at the edge of the tub so he was transferred over it smoothly

Ed stiffened the moment he touched water. "This is cold!" Hohenheim sat Ed down with him fussing. Ed reached for the tub's brass knob and turned on the hot. "This is freaking freezing!" Ed began shivering violently.

Hohenheim turned it off quickly. "Edward you're simply too warm." This was true. The fever was low grade and helping to absorb Ed's energy. It hadn't become dangerous or severe enough Hohenheim had done anything about it.

Ed's entire body was quivering, and his teeth were beginning to chatter. The sound was the rattling of dainty china. "I am not that warm!" Ed reached back for the facet but Hohenheim intercepted and covered the knob with his own. Ed snarled with insult. He grabbed the side of the tub to raise himself before stalling out like a faulty car. On impulse he was moving with four limbs when he only had two. This hit like a slap in the face. The reminder, the continuous inability, every time it was a blow, and Ed felt like he was in an endless boxing match. "_Get me out!_"

"You aren't ready yet," Hohenheim said. Ed's single leg was working to keep him firmly balanced while in the water, and his flesh hand was holding the rim of the tub. Ed was rather coordinated in the bath and Hohenheim was impressed. He was initially worried Ed might be wobbly and in danger of slipping under, but this didn't seem to be the case. "You need to stay in a while more." This was a polite way of saying no, and Ed heard it clearly. Suddenly he was being made to take a bath when he was of age to make his own decisions. Suddenly he was put in the tub like a child, and like a child, couldn't get out.

Ed tipped his face down and stared at the water in silent anger. The movement slid his bangs forward and a few dipped into the surface and spread out like roots. Hohenheim watched this with uncertainty. He tried to stay reasonable. "Ed, you're hair still needs to be washed." Ed couldn't stay filthy, and he was sure his son didn't want to be filthy.

"Get me a wash cloth!" Ed yelled, lifting his head up. His eyes were heavy and Hohenheim could see the drop in fever draining what little there was to Ed's capability. "Then, _get out of here!_" Ed pointed toward the door.

Hohenheim went to the small sink and lifted the cloth he kept on its rim. He picked it up thoughtfully and wet it in the tap where he could lather it with his bar of soap. He might not know Edward well, but his years of existence had given him a keen sense of dedication. He didn't need his son's acquaintance to feel Edward testing him. Ed was desperately seeking the line in the sand between them, and Hohenheim was sure Ed had every intention of destroying that line as soon as he could locate it. In a frantic attempt to assert and assure himself of his own independence, Ed wanted to push until he found resistance so he could break through it.

Inevitably this would force Hohenheim to offer it, and he was deliberately slow soaping the rag. He would have to handle this delicately. He was going to be forced to announce his overruling decision to stay in the room if Ed insisted he leave, and Ed knew this as well. Alone Ed could not properly bathe himself and could not get out of the tub. This was inarguable reality. "Think you're bathing me?" Ed asked, voice dripping with hate. "Hm?" Ed twisted his face up as if he'd be ill. "Do you think that's what's happening here?"

Hohenheim felt the beginning flicker of irritation. "Edward, be reasonable."

"I'll be freaking reasonable," Ed sneered. "Give me that, and get out." Ed extended his hand for the washcloth. Hohenheim turned around with it and looked at his son. Ed was like a rabid animal chained to the tub.

He relinquished the cloth politely. "If you are embarrassed I can get you a towel for your lap." He wasn't going to discuss how Ed's lack of modesty was surprising to him. Ed didn't so much as tolerate his unnecessary touch, and yet here was the boy sitting as naked as the day he was born in a tub of water. With one leg missing, and the other required to the ankle inward toward Ed's pelvis to create a stable foundation, Ed was as exposed as someone spreading their legs on purpose. Hohenheim had to imagine this meant something to the boy, even if Ed was not a modest person.

"I am not embarrassed!" Ed cried, fisting the cloth with shaking outrage. Ed's face was flushing and Hohenheim couldn't identify if it was fever or a blush. "I feel furious! Physically in rage Hohenheim!" Hohenheim was taken back with this description. "Ending up here and depending on you is the last thing I ever wanted to do! I…" Ed stopped abruptly with a small dry heave and leaned over the rim of the tub.

"What is it?" Hohenheim asked, becoming alarmed.

Ed gave his head a quick shake. He hung onto the rim of the tub looking over it like a seasick passenger on an ocean liner. "I am going to be sick," Ed said, voice nervous.

"Ed, you need to relax," Hohenheim said angrily. _Enough was enough._ "You're not in a condition that can support this type of behavior." Hohenheim stepped forward and took the washcloth from Ed's limp hand. Ed was breathing heavily with his cheek resting on the cold side of the tub. Hohenheim dipped the rag into the warm water. Ed didn't move when he washed it up the boy's back, but Ed's body turned to stone. "Independence will come back to you, but you must be healthy," Hohenheim said, scrubbing gently about Ed's shoulders. Although Ed's pale skin looked clean, he knew his son was laying in the alley trash before his arrival. "You know what I am saying is true," he said firmly. "So stop this. It's uncalled for."

Hohenheim felt a parental duty awakening he hadn't felt in years. It gave him strength and a level of final authority he had not possessed beyond Ed's second year. Once Ed began speaking and walking the boy became another entity instead of an accessory, and this was confusing to him. Suddenly Ed knew what he did and did not want, and although irrational and capricious, had the power to think. Ruling over another life, even a life he had created, seemed something he could not do with the indefiniteness it required. Trisha did so with unwavering certainty. When she was pleased with Ed's behavior she rewarded him with stickers or treats she believed he had earned. When she was displeased she told him so, and punished him in her own caring way. This totalitarian mentality felt burdensome and unfitting to him. He did not have Trisha's parental compass, and so did not always feel confident making mundane decisions. Those of punishment and reward were infinitely harder with Edward's child self. He had no experience with small children. In traveling you never interacted with small children, only older boys, adolescents, and men. He had to imagine Edward as an adolescent would be something he was capable of, but Edward as a three year old was difficult. Simple events caused odd reactions in him, and made him, in a way he had never before experienced, feel uncomfortable with his own mind.

However, before Edward's second year, when the boy was a life form that barely moved, and was complacent, he was comfortable. When it was time for Ed to nap, he put the boy in his bed. When it was time for Ed to eat, he brought the boy to Trisha. He was governed by cosanity, and so was Edward. There was no variable of independent thought, and he had the authority of the world's flow.

In hindsight he was privately embarrassed to admit simple acts of his infant son were alarming to him. When Edward was learning to crawl the boy's transition from his blanket to cold hard wood caused an unreasonable concern within Hohenheim. He remembered it distinctly because it rushed up on him irrationally. There was comedy in assigning emotion to one thread within a tapestry, and this defined how a single human life was difficult to understand when there were many humans, and with the knowledge it took many to accomplish what little they could. Edward, and then Alphonse, gave him the strangest sensation of his entire existence: _immediate and true fret for individual life._

Touching Edward's small infant body was disconcerting to him. His hands were careless mitts capable of crushing Edward's entire skull, or dismembering him without any effort. Lifting the baby made him nervous, and setting Edward back on his blanket with the boy squirming and sucking on toys or hand, was an act he preferred to call Trisha for. He feared his own strength, and the hundreds inside him, to a degree he had never realized or imagined possible.

Trisha called him a silly nervous man, and would laugh lovingly when she found him fretting over simple domestic tasks. Teasing she would ask, "_What are you doing Van?"_ Often while he was struggling to confess she would lie sweetly that she was busy and could not help. "_Just put Edward back on his blanket where he wants to be." _

Trisha welcomed him touching or holding the children. Playing with him, she would come deposit them into his arms, and laugh and kiss him. The boys were also blissful unaware of how easy it would be for something as old and powerful as him to squelch away their delicate life like a candle flame. Through everything, and even when he began to change, his strength, ability, and even his illness was never the enemy to her. She loved to see him with the children.

From the tub Ed ignored Hohenheim's increasingly dazed expression and distracted mannerisms. Despite himself he found the hot water incredibly relaxing and desirable. His body was growing so heavy it was destroying even his ability to become alarmed with his own fatigue. He lay slumped into the side with his eyes closed enjoying the massaging sensation the scrubbing cloth gave him. The friction of the wet cotton against his bare skin was similar to the leather of Alphonse's armor hands. When they would travel and his body would ache, Alphonse would rub his muscles with a grip that never tired.

Hohenheim left his memory of Trisha rocking a fat baby Alphonse, who would later grow fluffy blonde hair and an unnatural desire to catch Resembool fireflies, and refocused his attention on the current day. He worried about Ed falling asleep or even slipping unconscious while in the tub and sought out conversation.

"What did you do after you lost your limbs?" he asked. He found it curious how quickly Ed relaxed with someone bathing him. Having never experienced anything similar he found it fascinating Ed's familiarity with participation during such a private act gave him the ability to find it calming.

"After ward…you remember the Rockbells…." Ed muffled his words out as if half asleep. "They took care of us."

Hohenheim smiled. "They're good people." He remembered the fiery young girl with the aspirations of a man. She did what she said, went out and made a name for herself, and raised her son on her own. When he learned the child died, tragically, he found it appropriate she was left with a new child to take care of. Her son had grown to an age where he had at least populated. "Pinako had a granddaughter." Ed grunted softly in affirmation. "Your age?" Ed grunted again. "Were you friends?" Hohenheim imagined Ed must have been friends with this girl. In Resembool, where Trisha was from, there were not many people. Everyone knew each others circumstances and all could be relied upon for help. It was a small safe town. Pinako was close, within walking distance, so it would have been convenient as well. "You would have grown up together," Hohenheim said thoughtfully. He tried to remember a small girl in his home when he was there. A small thing with blonde hair wearing pink. It was difficult. It was much easier to remember Alphonse's plastic dinosaurs and the blue and green colors of the boys' blocks.

"Yes," Ed said sleepily, cracking an eye. "We are friends."

Living so close and aging together, Hohenheim found a hopeful smile ticking at the side of his mouth. It was likely she was his son's first kiss. Being a female in such close proximity, Ed would have been drawn to her the way a male human was drawn to a female human. "Did you ever date?" Hohenheim asked. Ed's eyes opened with confused intrigue. He didn't know what to make of the question, or the fact Hohenheim thought to ask it. "If it's too personal, you don't have to answer." Hohenheim slid his hand under Ed's chest and scrubbed over his son's ribs and down his stomach.

Ed was quiet for a moment before answering in a neutral tone that took no offense. "No," Ed said simply. Ed remembered Winry's room, Winry's smell, and the way her shirt started growing outward the way his did not, and the way her hugs suddenly felt different. _That was about the time it occurred to him._ "It didn't work out," Ed said flatly. Hohenheim looked disappointed and Ed found this surprising. _Why would this man care what he did_. "We were friends though."

Hohenheim abandoned this topic with a bit of embarrassment. He hated to think of himself as a tired old human who found the activities of one small boy so captivating. This felt largely in opposition to what he was, but like a guilty pleasure, he couldn't deny he wanted to know. _He wanted to know his son_. "I am glad," he said softly. This was the truth, and he felt pleased. "I am glad to know you had friends." Ed was doing well in Amestris.

Hohenheim received the glass bowl he reserved for guests and used it to wash Ed's hair. It was a fine china with tiny blue flowers painted about the edges. He doused Ed's head and scrubbed it with his right hand while his left hung tight to Ed's arm to stabilize the boy. Ed could keep himself steady if untouched, but didn't have the foundation to combat any type of shoving. Hohenheim washed in silence with the bathroom adapting the chalky smell of the baking soda he had sprinkled into Ed's hair as shampoo. Whether Ed was familiar with this or not, he seemed too tired to care, and sat with his head turning into a paste.

Hohenheim felt tranquil laboring at the single task of washing Ed's hair and broke the comfortable silence that had bloomed. "Dr. Gratter is a good friend of mine." Ed was enjoying the massage on his scalp and said nothing. "We should visit him tomorrow." Hohenheim rinsed Ed's hair as carefully as he could. The warm water and drop in fever had Ed half asleep. "I am sure he can help us get something to make life…manageable for you."

"I want you to leave me in here," Ed said, leaning heavily into the hand Hohenheim had holding the boy up.

Hohenheim was shocked. "In the tub?"

"To relax."

Hohenheim finished the last rinse of Ed's hair and looked at the blonde strains. Wet they were a solid gold blanket fanning down Edward's upper back. He was proud Ed had inherited the color from him, but also embarrassed, as if he'd taken something on Trisha.

"I'll be fine by myself old man," Ed grumbled sourly.

"Then I'll step out for a moment." Hohenheim helped Ed lean back into the tub. Ed closed his eyes at once and sighed the heavy sigh of someone finding rest after a long walk. "From the apartment Ed." Ed responded with a disinterested hum. "Just to get you some clothes, I won't be gone long." Ed repeated the same monotone sound. "Can you care for yourself while I am gone?" Ed was implying this, but Hohenheim felt he had to hear it.

"Go," Ed said miserably.

Hohenheim left with the lavatory full of warm steam. He wrapped himself for the winter weather and departed. He wanted to be quick, and felt confident Ed could add water as he became cold. He wasn't expecting Ed to slip back into such a deep sleep he woke the boy with his lips turning blue.

"Edward, what is wrong with you?" Hohenheim asked, jerking Ed up by his arm. Ed awoke completely disoriented with his teeth chattering. Hohenheim's strength yanked Ed's top half up causing Ed to slip sideways and loose all stability. This scared them both. Neither of them were expecting this, and Hohenheim looped his arm into the water and about Ed's torso and pulled him out. Ed was difficult to manage slick with water and thin as a rail. Quickly Hohenheim sat the boy on the rim of the tub to take Ed's weight off his arm so he could move. "Couldn't you feel yourself becoming chilled?" he asked angrily. Ed managed a few incomprehensible words leaning forward and coming around slowly. He was dripping everywhere and the near stream falling from Ed's hair back into the tub made it sound as if it were raining. Hohenheim pressed his hand to Ed's forehead, but Ed was frozen. "Ed, you're cold as ice," he snapped, briefly surprised by his own anger. It was present, and very real. He had not been angry with Ed in years, and he was surprise the emotion took so easily.

"What…happened?" Ed asked, slurring his words out slowly with his eyes barely open. "Where…am…" Ed seemed more than a little confused as to where he was and what was happening. His single arm grabbed at the rim of the tub for balance, before raising to his face.

Hohenheim unplugged the tub and turned the warm water back on. "I am going to sit you back inside and get some warm water to you," he said, beginning to move even as he spoke. He sat Ed back into the few cold inches of water and pulled him closer to the faucet. Ed was like ice, and looked white as snow. He had begun a low deep toned sound of discomfort in his throat and was investigating himself with his hand. Ed reached first to his stumped shoulder and grabbed it with a throated choke of concern before seeming to realize he was naked.

Hohenheim turned on the warm water and used his hand as a guide so it ran down Ed's shoulders and spine like a river. Ed flinched with the sudden warm water and his body gave a great frame rattling shudder.

"Ed, how long were you sleeping?" Hohenheim asked, reaching back for a towel. He brought it to his lap and shook it open. In his rough estimation it would have taken fifteen to twenty minutes for the water to cool to an uncomfortable temperature. That would have left Ed submerged in something disagreeable and becoming worse for nearly the same timeframe. "Ed?"

"What?" Ed slurred, eyes closed and seeming drunk.

Hohenheim shut off the water and tucked his left arm beneath Ed's and held the right side of Ed's chest firmly in order to stand him up. With Ed unable to support his body Hohenheim took the boy against his chest. Ed felt like a bucket of water thrown at him, and was immediately soaking through his clothes. "I can not believe this Ed," Hohenheim said softly. He wrapped the towel about Ed's torso as quickly as possible before lifting him like a bride. "How could you become so careless?" The painful question he didn't speak was, _how could I become so careless_.

Ed responded as if he were assaulted by the towel. Trapped in the brain numbing fog of a sick person, Ed felt his body wrapped in something before his vertigo changed. Hohenheim scooped Ed up and held him close to give him heat. Ed was absorbing it rapidly but seemed too tired to stay coherent. He didn't speak any further and was like a doll when Hohenheim walked quickly back to the day bed and laid him in it.

Hohenheim was careful to set Ed several inches in to keep him from the edge. He placed Ed's head on his pillow, and with both hands free, racked the sheet and bit of quilt out from under him to keep them dry. Next he rushed for the brown paper bag of clothing he'd bought. He had bought only simple articles of necessity. He knew Edward would have his own taste and was old enough to buy his own clothing. He pulled out Germany's underwear. It was fashioned as a cotton one piece known as a shirt-and-drawers to resemble a short sleeve shirt and standard drawers which buttoned down the middle. He slid Ed's foot into the slit on the main torso before doing the same with the stump. Ed stirred with this and reached down trying to grasp Hohenheim's hand before covering his genitals self consciously. "Go…away," Ed moaned, shivering helplessly.

"Edward, you're going to become sick like this." Hohenheim ignored this comment. He yanked the pant bottom up to his son's waist and tugged the upper half up to Ed's arm. Ed struggled weakly unable to understand these movements and the clothing. Amestris did not have this design and Hohenheim knew this style, like several others, would confuse Ed.

"Get…off me…old man," Ed ordered weakly. "Get…me my underwear." Ed could barely keep his eyes open. "I want my…boxers."

"Edward in this world boxers are people who fight for money." Hohenheim worked the cut off shoulder in before grabbing Ed's flesh wrist and feeding it into the arm hole. He was dressing his son so that Edward's torso and several inches into all limbs were adorned in cotton. It stopped before the knees and was sewn like a tee shirt up top, but it was this world's underwear. Ed didn't want it. He shoved at the cotton and tried to take it off. "Stop it," Hohenheim commanded, brushing Ed's hand aside and doing the buttons down the boy's chest and stomach. "You're cold as death." He pulled the towel to Ed's head and squeezed frantically all about the blonde strains to dry them. Ed slapped at Hohenheim with a disoriented wave before falling entirely asleep.

Hohenheim wrapped Ed in the day bed quilt, and then returned to the lavatory and cleaned up. There were puddles of water on the wood and drips leading to the day bed like bread crumbs.

Ed was sleeping with an expression of pale distress framed in wet tangled hair. He was more exhausted than either of them seemed to know. With Ed fully covered and regaining temperature Hohenheim stepped back and considered the train wreck Edward was bringing to his routine and bouts of concern Ed was waking within him. He tried to reassure himself lying in a cooling tub would not further injure Ed, but his emotional side did not want to hear this. It was convinced something should have been done to prevent, and better correct the situation. Irritably Hohenheim found an extra pillow to add to the day bed and wedged it in along side Ed's head before abandoning the boy.

He ate alone, at the table, watching the quilt rise and fall to the sound of Ed's breathing.

* * *

And there is chapter 4! I will rely on you, wonderful readers, to review – and share your valuable thoughts. We are growing darker, as Germany becomes more real.

Chapter 5: _Invalidus_ will be up 2/1/13. …what do you think is in store? : )

_Authors Note:**  
**This story contains adult language, violence, and adult themes. As the story progresses the rating will change appropriately. Please properly observe the rating to abide by any governing principles in your life._


	5. Invalidus

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Five  
_Invalidus_

- mirage -

Graham held up a small bottle for Hohenheim to see, and in an eager tone, sounding almost giddy, he said, "This is my concoction, this was my conclusion, very special."

Hohenheim took the slender bottle and held it along the first Graham had handed over. The old man was grinning with excitement. "It's a new drug which will hopefully allow me to participate in this immunology mumbo-jumbo," Graham said, slighting the very work they took serious in jest. "We've got to get better at identifying those little bacteria bastards, if there truly are such things." Graham sounded more than pleased with himself. "I have big plans for it, but it's not quite finished. Something is missing." Graham gestured to the counter of test tubes between them and Hohenheim looked at the scientific provisions.

"What's missing?" Hohenheim asked. Graham smiled warmly and raised a finger.

"What's missing indeed." Graham rushed to a fat book of notes and began flipping through pages. The man's office was wall to wall with books framing only his desk and the large counter of testing supplies. The office, like Graham's loft, was funded by the local university, and Graham crammed both of the generous spaces with studies, journals, and long tables of medical and science supplies.

"I have been waiting for you to ask me that _Doctor _Hohenheim," Graham teased. Hohenheim set the small bottles on the counter and walked to Graham's side. "I have concluded three possible variables which are missing." Graham ran his finger over a note covered page where scribbled equations littered almost every inch. "I would like for you to read through my data and we'll see if your answer concludes with any of mine." Graham closed the journal and gave Hohenheim a wink before offering it.

Hohenheim took the book of considerable weight and gave a flatter laugh. Graham was a fine doctor and was making great progress in this world. Still, this would be time consuming. Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Ed who, in a cotton dress shirt and brown pants, was sitting miserably in his wheel chair along side Graham's desk looking bored with them.

"My son is missing two limbs," Hohenheim said. Ed locked their gaze immediately and looked worried and offended with this statement. "I know the medical field is advancing, and I was going to spend the next few days looking for some prosthetics. I need good ones, and since I am an untrained eye, that will be a rather daunting task."

Graham understood perfectly. "Let me worry about prosthetics," Graham said, humored with the banter. Graham went to his desk and Ed was now watching them intently.

Hohenheim waited until Graham fished through a pile of papers and torn apart a stack of books in order to retrieve the one on the very bottom. Then, when it looked as if Graham had retrieved what he was seeking, and was flipping through, Hohenheim said, "I couldn't ask you to take on such a burden." This was only for the sake of charade, and Graham barked a laugh down to the pages before lifting his hand in a dramatic slap to mock their games.

"Edward, your father is a cunning man," Graham said, laughing warmly. Graham took the news of Edward's relation gracefully, and did nothing other than frown with disagreement he wasn't told sooner. He looked up from the book and studied Ed critically. "You look pale son." Edward was white as a ghost. "Still, you appear much better than the last time I saw you. Out of bed at least, but not a wise decision indeed." Graham paused to send Hohenheim a glance full of caution. "Not in the dead of winter," he added, drifting into a solemn appearance before destroying it as quickly as it had settled by lifting a finger with sudden vigor and giving it a thoughtful shake. "Open up your shirt there boy, and I'll have a look at you while I have time."

Ed was not impressed with this hospitality and seeming inconvenienced, slowly brought his hand to his shirt and began the buttons single handedly.

"Thank you," Hohenheim said.

"Advanced prosthetics are only available in larger cities. Ones that are more lifelike and match skin color will only be found in big flourishing cities," Graham said with excitement. "We'll take a look at what Berlin has to offer, but we may want to even consider Paris and such places."

"I need both his arm and leg," Hohenheim said.

Graham found what he was hunting with a clap of his hands. He turned the book around and shoved it across the desk so Ed could share it. This uprooted papers and notes carelessly, but Graham paid no mind. He was a good scientist because he became consumed the way only a good scientist could. Ed had his shirt fully unbuttoned and leaned forward with eager curiosity to see. "This is what you want," Graham said, pointing at the schematics printed on the page.

Hohenheim crossed the room eagerly and joined them. Prosthetics were displayed in Graham's book broken into sketched colorless pieces with Latin phrases and German words identifying them. This was slightly difficult for him as the language of this world was still different. It varied greatly in some areas and changed completely in others. There were words which still rooted themselves in the ever giving Latin language, and then there were words which did not. This meant like him, in the beginning, Ed would be next to illiterate.

Ed looked at the open book with fascination but utter confusion. The diagrams were incredibly detailed, and if it were not for the full make, which was often very small and in the corner of the page, the blueprint might as well have been a bridge or a plane. Something as easy as a finger was understandable, but joints and rotating contraptions were next to unidentifiable.

Graham left the desk with Hohenheim studying the book and approached Ed. He adorned a stethoscope and slipped his hand beneath the shirt of Ed's underwear to place it on Ed's chest.

"Pick what you like, _silently_," Graham instructed. He closed his eyes while listening to Ed's breath in several places. After a minute he guided Ed to lean forward and placed the stethoscope diaphragm on Ed's back.

"I'll pay you, of course," Hohenheim said, slowly turning a few pages. Ed was extremely interested but he did not touch the book. This was the same way he did not speak after greeting Graham. Ed felt foreign in Germany and behaved as such.

"I receive ten percent off the listed price," Graham said. He finished listening to Ed's chest with a heavy sign, and reported with disappointment, "He's much the same."

Hohenheim was not discouraged. "I'll take the most expensive, right away," Hohenheim said. He sent Ed a reassuring smile. Ed was sitting with his shirt unbuttoned and his underwear visible rubbing at his painful chest.

* * *

They had decided to move the dresser up the stairs first. To make it lighter they had taken out the drawers and carried them up individually. They deposited them in the small second bedroom to the left of Hohenheim's kitchen. The bed was to be moved second, and as predicted, the bed was proving more inconvenient than the dresser. Christopher, Hohenheim's furniture towing partner, held steadfast to the underside of the bed, but the varnish kept it slippery and difficult to grip. On the stairs each backwards step Hohenheim took introduced a moment of rest where it slipped, but did not fall, and they caught their breath.

"Old man!" Ed called from the apartment. Ed's chest seemed to be in a process of healing and this made his voice raspy in the morning and at night when it was tired. However during the afternoon, and especially when yelling, he managed a confident capable tone which satisfied him. "Are you out there laying in it?" Ed mocked. "Get it moving!" Ed's verbal delinquency humored him, and Hohenheim heard the boy chuckling. Chris was less enthused with this, and with both of them rasping and straining to hold the bed frame on the narrow stairs, Chris glared up at Hohenheim.

"He's….a…jerk," Chris said, cheeks read with strain. "Wish I could…tell him to get up and…help." Hohenheim ignored this. He wasn't going to support bad mouthing between the two boys. They had developed a high tension relationship due to his existence between them.

"Christopher," Hohenheim said kindly, stepping back into the upstairs hall with relief the stairs were over. "Please, mind yourself while he recovers." Hohenheim could feel Christopher's hostility. Chris was not accustomed to Amestris's customs. He was raised in the strict German culture that found Edward's incredibly insolent and arrogant attitude insufferable. He was frustrated Hohenheim was allowing it and Hohenheim understood this. By tolerating Ed's disrespectful behavior in a situation where Ed was relying on him entirely, he was driving Chris up the wall. German culture would have, at a young age, chastised Edward into obedience and responsibility, and obliterated any hint of such behavior even at this current age with additional whippings. Amestris, where Edward was raised, would have found this practice ghastly. Trisha never would have been able to stomach it, and Hohenheim suspected, would not have allowed it either. She raised the boys with patience, giving guiding riddles and time for reflection when they misbehaved. Small bouts of skin reddening slaps when other tactics weren't working she could manage, but Germany's harsh and rigid society would have seemed cruel to her.

So Edward had spent his youth in Resembool before strutting about as the youngest alchemist in the state with men twice his age making one third his annual income and bowing at his feet. As a result, Edward brought this sense of professional accomplishment and entitlement with him to Germany, and Hohenheim could feel Christopher's overwhelming desire to verbally put Ed in his place. Ironically, it was Christopher's respectful German upbringing that kept him from doing so, but Hohenheim wasn't sure how long this could last. Ed was becoming incredibly spiteful toward the boy, and although Hohenheim knew Ed would put up a fight if Christopher ever lost his tongue, he didn't feel Ed was up to the challenge, and wanted to avoid the confrontation.

Ed did not seem to be capable of dealing with his own immobility. The dependence, and total dependence Edward was being forced to experience, was driving him mad. In the morning Ed was weak, sometimes too weak to hold up a cup, or eat anywhere near enough to satisfy Hohenheim's worry. Then late morning blossomed into afternoon and Ed opened with it. He became talkative, opinionated, angry, and hideously vicious if he required assistance with anything personal. This carried on into evening, where after eating, digestion sucked the life back out of Ed's body, and his voice became raspy as if with a cold, and his eyes would darken as if with the flu. Sleep came aggressively, and several times had attacked the boy mid conversation and left him snoring. Although these quiet evenings had given Hohenheim time to read into Graham's work, identify the missing bacteria Graham already suspected to be absent, and mail the book back, it did not seem an equal trade.

For five days Hohenheim had walked the thin wire that was Edward's emotional instability, and Ed had, for five days, been swallowing his own incapacitation. On day three this was a struggle, and now the afternoon of day five, Ed was growing ugly with it. His bull-headed and defensive disposition was becoming more aggressive as time shoved the weakness he wanted to acknowledge least of all into his face.

"Look out for the rug," Ed warned, watching Hohenheim back into the apartment carrying the bed frame.

Ed was sitting in the day bed with a blanket and a book. Trapped in what was becoming a coffin for the boy; Ed tried to hide the intensity of his interest in any apartment activity. Life was currently very dull for Ed, and forced into a spectator's sport, Ed could not fight his rising curiosity toward any type of change. Even Christopher's visits, which Ed for some reason despised, he wanted to participate in.

"Nice to see you, Ed," Chris said, hiding his miserable tone poorly. He trudged toward the second bedroom with Hohenheim and Ed was not impressed.

"It's too close to the top," Ed said smartly, right before the bedpost hit the top door frame. "Lower it." Ed waved downward with his single hand. Lowering the bed was incredibly difficult. Hohenheim felt Chris try to obey and the boy groaned with the increase in weight to his back. The bed was solid oak and very heavy. Upon their second attempt the bedpost still hit the door frame. "Lower!" Ed snapped.

Hohenheim bit his tongue to keep from politely reminding Ed he had manners. He took all efforts to refrain from correcting or instructing Ed in any way which could be seen as reprimanding while Chris was present. In front of people from this world he discussed nothing Ed might consider personal to himself. He could feel Ed's resentful distaste for their collective as powerfully as if the boy were admitting a cold draft. _Ed hated them._ Committing these acts would be as insulting and humiliating to Ed as severely reprimanding him in front of Alphonse. Germany translated this as parental failure, but Hohenheim viewed his debt to Ed as nearly insatiable. He would take the mark against his judgment to give his son an act of kindness.

They managed to squeeze the bed into the second bedroom on the fourth attempt. With loud groans they dropped it to the floor and stood panting and rubbing their lower backs. "Thank you," Hohenheim managed after a moment of rough breathing. He slapped Chris's shoulder and gave the boy a smile of approval.

"This is it, right?" Christopher did not sound as if he could handle dragging any more furniture up the stairs.

"Yes." Hohenheim gave a nod and glanced about the room. The dresser drawers were stacked in the corner, the mattress leaning against the wall, and now the bed sat in the middle.

"Do you want me to help you put the room together?" Chris asked, dusting his hands on the back of his pants. Hohenheim was considering this offer when Ed began coughing.

"No, no, I'll be fine," Hohenheim reassured. "I don't want to keep you from work. I know it's your income."

Chris gave a quick shrug, the shrug of someone sick of a tried and true fact, and turned to leave. Ed had not stopped coughing since his first sputter and glared at the casual wave Chris sent him. In this world, and during these times, people coughing, and coughing badly, were nothing of interest. People were dropping like flies.

"Ed," Hohenheim said, leaving the cramped bedroom of disassembled furniture for his kitchen. "Drink something." He filled a cup and went quickly to Ed's side. The coughing had Ed penned in the moment of covering his mouth. It just continued coming and Ed was barely able to move. Holding his mouth, Ed watched Christopher cross the hall to his own apartment and hated the boy for being able to walk. He hated him for being a simple glassmaker in Germany who was more powerful and capable than the Fullmetal Alchemist.

Hohenheim lowered the cup into Ed's line of sight, and it was the close proximity, and Ed's consumed attention that allowed Hohenheim to catch the odd twinkle in Ed's eye. It was obvious. Ed was watching Christopher, and with a look Hohenheim had never seen. Although Ed was choking on his air, his eyes had locked onto Christopher's body with a sort of intrigue that instinctively caused Hohenheim to shove the cup forward and sever whatever Ed was doing.

"Drink this." Ed brought his shaking flesh hand to the cup while trying, but failing, to politely keep his mouth closed as he coughed. "Ed." Hohenheim pressed the cup into Ed's shaking hand and overlapped Ed's with his own. "Relax your throat." He moved the cup to Ed's lips and Ed was coughing into the water while trying to sip it. "Relax son." Drinking caused bouts of silence as Ed swallowed, before sputtering into the cup and splashing droplets of water onto his face. "Easy." Hohenheim reached down and rubbed Ed's back in a lazy repetitive stroke from top to bottom. This action flooded him with memory of doing so long ago. When his palm was nearly the size of Edward's entire body and he'd hold the infant boy to his shoulder. Briefly, he remembered his fascination with Ed's ability to live while so small, and the fact he had fit inside Trisha while so big.

Ed swallowed a large gulp that ended the coughing and left Ed panting at a heavy runner's speed. Weakly Ed pressed the cup away from his face before shoving Hohenheim's hand aside as well.

Hohenheim crouched down before the day bed and set the cup along side it. "Do you want me to bring you anywhere?" Ed knew the small empty bedroom to the left of the kitchen and right of the lavatory, which contained no closet and was nearly as small as the lavatory, was to be his room. Whether he was pleased about this or not he did not say.

Ed glanced at the open bedroom door Hohenheim gestured to with red rimmed eyes and a flushed expression. "I am…reading," Ed rasped, giving his head a shake. Hohenheim said nothing. It was obvious to both of them Edward stayed in one spot until it was absolutely necessary he move, and then he was repulsed with needing help to do so. Ed did not like requisitioning Hohenheim, and neither of them were addressing this elephant in the room.

"Are you sure?" Hohenheim didn't know how to ask Ed if he had taken care of himself the way Trisha used to. In the summer Ed would run in and out of the house from sun up to sun down playing. Hohenheim remembered Trisha stopping tasks as violently as if she'd been ripped away from them to catch Ed's arm as he was darting by. In one memory she was standing at the sink washing dishes when she suddenly reached a sudsy hand outward and snatched the top of Ed's arm as he was bolting towards the back screen door. _Edward, did you eat all of your lunch? Did you drink your juice? Can you bring me your plate then please? Thank you. Do you feel tired? Okay, well in ten minutes mommy wants you to come in and lay down for a bit. I love you too._ Trisha had a mental checklist for the boys and when she didn't know what was done, she asked what was done, and no one seemed to become offended. It was mom. She had a right Hohenheim did not have, and somehow equally as perplexing was the fact she seemed to have acquired it by earning it.

Hohenheim left Ed reading in the day bed. Four days ago he set his books from Amestris in reach of Ed. Now, while recovering, it seemed more important Ed have something to occupy his mind, then for him to gain the knowledge he could not read or write the language they called German. Hohenheim did not think Edward could take that blow just yet.

Hohenheim assembled the small narrow bedroom with the bed in the back corner so the sole window met the footboard. The dresser he put on the back wall and there wasn't much room for anything else.

"Edward, I have to go down to Doctor Gratter's and pick up our shipment," Hohenheim called, leveling the last dresser drawer into its slot and sliding it home. Edward didn't answer and Hohenheim gave the drawer a quick open and close to test it. "All right?" Hohenheim left the dresser and stepped from the room. Ed was sitting in the day bed looking pale and staring off at nothing. "Ed?"

Ed's head jerked around to Hohenheim as if awoken from a dream. "I am sorry, what?" Ed muttered.

Ed's expression was tense, as if the boy were troubled, and Hohenheim crossed the room and laid his palm to Edward's forehead feeling worry pool in his stomach. "Are you all right?"

Ed slapped Hohenheim's hand off, and raked his teeth a few times within his closed jaw. "Fine," Ed said, in a low cold tone of anger.

Hohenheim was skeptical to put it politely. "Ed, you understand I need to leave to pick up the shipment, right?" he asked, worried Ed was loosing mental grasp while so exhausted.

"I am not an idiot."

"It will take me about an hour."

"Fine." Ed made to resume reading the book in his lap but was only able to lift it a pathetic inch. "Go, I'll wait here." Ed presented this idea as if it were a choice he stay behind and wait. Hohenheim was unsettled. He felt the urge to run his hand through Ed's hair swell within him, and he carefully closed his hand into a fist at his side. Ed raised the book to his face with some difficulty but held it steady. "Go. You think I can't watch after myself?" Ed asked, speaking into the open pages before casting his eyes upward in barbed daggers. "Is that what you're implying?"

Hohenheim resigned himself, and took a step back. "I will be brief, and I'll hurry back." He walked to the closet and shrugged into his topcoat. He'd feel more at ease if he left someone in the apartment with Ed, but the only option was Christopher and Christopher's addition would only make the situation more volatile. "Ed, I am leaving now."

Ed grunted with irritation. "Take your time," Ed said sourly.

Hohenheim locked the apartment door behind him. The entire trip would cost an hour, and he felt disturbed leaving Ed alone for so long while his recovery had been unstable and inconsistent, but the prosthetics were necessary. They were necessary in every way, and that was the hell of it.

* * *

Hohenheim returned exactly sixty one minutes later and he had fought to keep his schedule. Germany's developing political unrest was beginning to rear its head, and Hohenheim had reservations about remaining in the third largest city of this country. Munich's residents promised to be passionately involved in whatever war this world planned on raging, and he had no interest in living in a rat's nest of political extremists and firing guns. In such a situation he would be forced to choose a side, and to contribute his knowledge to whatever side that was. He was not ready to make such a commitment, nor decide for Ed, which side they should be on. Sliding his key into the apartment, he realized distantly, in the future they would need to move.

Hohenheim carried two parcels too big for his arms and it was difficult to see around them. Awkwardly he side-stepped through the apartment door, and banged the tallest box against the door frame so loudly he was surprised Chris didn't come to investigate. The third time he repeated the fumbling smack of the box into a portion of the woodwork he cursed colorfully. The prosthetics were expensive, and the idea of having to return something damaged and wait for a replacement was so threatening and so certain a set back for Ed, it was inconceivable. _This needed to come together now._

The two parcels had been shipped from London and came to cost even more than he had expected in travel to Germany. With a heavy sigh he heaved them down onto the dinner table and looked at the plain brown wrapping and simple twine ties. The boxes looked simple and quaint and gave no hint to the puzzle inside. In one hand he had this land's technology and science, and in another Edward and Amestris. Somehow he had to fit them together, and turn whatever Europe decided was top of the line for false limbs into something Ed recognized as the durable weapons his world bore. It would be a challenge, but he was used to the challenge that came with trying to fit one world into another. The fact he would not confess, was that he was not used to succeeding.

Hohenheim looked over to the daybed with a smile, but it fell with Edward's absence. Hohenheim stiffened. _Ed was missing_.

"Ed?" Hohenheim walked to the daybed and picked up the discarded blanket Ed was partial to. The apartment was silent and looked untouched. Quickly Hohenheim walked though the small parlor, well kept kitchen, checked his own and then the new bedroom, before realizing, almost dumbly, that he should have searched the lavatory first. With building adrenaline Hohenheim approached the lavatory, certain he would find Ed in a bad way, and swept the door in.

If Edward had two legs, the door surely would have hit the second, but with only one, Ed lay curled in a loose fetal position on the cold floor, and the door sailed in and past him. "Jesus, Mary…" Hohenheim stepped in quickly.

Planting his feet on either side of Ed's scrawny crying body he bent down to the boy. Ed was puffing weak painful sounding cries into the arm he had over his face. He had curled it upward like a snake enveloping his face and fisting the hair on the crown of his head. Wearing nothing but a linen shirt and brown corduroy pants, the unforgiving wood floor, which was over the quiet and unheated downstairs hall, had robbed Ed of almost all body heat.

"Ed?" Hohenheim whispered. His first fear was a fall, and he slid his hands into Ed's golden strains. They had fanned outward like a halo. Hohenheim's investigatory fingers brushed this apart as he felt Ed's skull. He was searching for a bump, a scrape, warm blood, anything that said Ed fell and couldn't catch himself. That the boy went down hard, sole hand grasping at the doorknob and missing it, flailing for the sink but unable to manage purchase, before crack, Ed's head would have hit the floor like an egg.

Ed yanked his head away from the groping touch and curled tighter into his arm. "Ed," Hohenheim said, sounding desperate even to himself. "Are you all right?" He hadn't felt any damage and he was relieved it wasn't a concussion Ed was nursing for the last hour. "Ed." Hohenheim slipped a hand under Ed's arm and managed a firm grasp. "Come on." He encouraged Ed to rise with a gentle tug. Ed sobbed a protest. "Edward, you can't stay as you are." Ed spoke then, a hysterical gibber into his arm and it was senseless. "I can't understand you." The same sound repeated. "Edward." Hohenheim strengthened his tone. "We need to get you up." He pulled upward, hoisting Ed's limp top half from the floor so it hung in a sad slumped and broken way.

"Okay! Stop! Stop!" Ed cried, unable to entirely end his tears. Ed raised his voice and in a barking angry manner slapped Hohenheim with a single word: "_Hohenheim!_"

Hohenheim stopped all moment. The sound of his own name in Ed's voice was so entirely foreign it was paralyzing. It was no longer the poorly pronounced childish Ho-nen-heim, from long ago. Ed's voice held the declaration of his age and gender as a man, and it was startling.

"I said I have to…" Ed was crying, and he was hard to understand. "I am trying to."

"What are you trying to do?"

"I am trying not to!" Ed cried, pressing his face into his shoulder to help clean it of his tears. They were thin and sparse, but made Ed's cheeks look dry and painfully cold.

"What are you trying not to do?" Hohenheim abandoned his crouching position for a more comfortable kneel. He used both hands to steady Ed's upper half. Ed's head was lolling toward whatever side of him was unsupported as if too weak to hold it.

"I!" Ed cried, sniveling heavily for a few breaths. "I am going to piss myself!" Hohenheim was surprised, and glanced quickly to Ed's lap. Ed had curled his flesh leg inward. On top of his thigh Ed was fisting his pants with his single hand. It was shaking in testimony to his struggle.

"All right," Hohenheim said, managing a firm grip on Ed and carrying the boy into a wobbly upright position as he stood. He moved carefully with Ed's dead weight caught in his arms as if he were hugging a bag of potatoes. He stepped them in front of the toilet and Ed was shivering and whining to himself. Carefully he shifted Ed's entirely into his left arm. Ed was sagging downward and a bit over his forearm like a sack. Ed's leg did not have any strength and buckled the moment it was asked to support the boy. All it seemed Ed could weakly manage was his arm, and the feat of holding up his head.

As soon as they were standing Ed grabbed Hohenheim's left wrist with his single flesh hand and tried to help manage a stable way to exist in the man's arms. "Relax," Hohenheim said, moving with purpose. He stabilized Ed in his grip and with his right hand lifted the bottom of Ed's linen top up to Ed's stomach. With Ed flush to his chest, although crumpling downward, Ed was in the right position, and he began opening the boy's fly.

Ed broke out squirming immediately. "No!" Ed cried. He was in no position to easily reach his fly, but tried just the same. He swiped at the space below his navel before batting at Hohenheim's hand. "No! _No-no-no-no-no_." Ed was repeating this word frantically. Hohenheim was partially on autopilot and unzipped Ed's fly with Ed protesting before bouncing Ed's weight higher in his arms. This granted Ed full control of his flesh arm, and in a panic he reached down and covered his open fly. Ed grabbed the fabric of his crotch and gripped his dick through his pants self consciously. "I can do it myself!" Ed cried. "_I do it myself!" _Hohenheim didn't know where to start his argument, but Ed did. "Stop undressing me! You don't undress me! Don't fucking undress me!"

"Ed, you can barely stand," Hohenheim snapped. This was a lie, Ed could not stand. "Do you need my assistance?" He didn't understand what Ed's plan was, and Ed fell silent. He hung almost motionless, holding himself for reassurance he would not be overruled. Hohenheim gave Ed a minor shake. "Edward." He meant this to be a scolding, but instead he heard his voice begging. "Stop this." He turned Ed to face him and hugged Ed's near delirious self. Ed hated it and slapped at him. "I can sit you back onto the toilet," Hohenheim whispered, looking down at the head of golden hair rocking unsteadily on his chest. "I am not trying to embarrass you Ed; I only want to help you."

"I want you to leave me alone!" Ed said. "I want you to get away from me!"

"But you cannot stand." Hohenheim offered reason. "Ed, you can barely move." This fact was frightening, and it terrified them both.

Caught in overwhelming fury born of fear, Ed brought his flesh hand down on Hohenheim's solid bicep like a hammer, but the impact was less than that used to swat a mosquito. Hohenheim tried to be patient, but Ed didn't seem to be recovering he seemed to be escalating. His breath was becoming ragged and a low, but noticeable, shudder seemed to be growing outward from his core.

"Ed, perhaps it will be easiest to care for yourself sitting," Hohenheim said kindly.

Ed grabbed Hohenheim's lapels and yanked with a strength that startled Hohenheim."I am an invalid!" Ed screamed. "An INVALID!"

"Edward," Hohenheim scolded. Ed was near hyperventilation.

Distantly the thought he was untrained and incapable of taking care of Ed, dare something happen, crossed Hohenheim's mind, and he felt a new strength and determination to gain control of the situation.

"CRIPPLED!"

"Edward, try and relax yourself."

"FOREVER! In this stupid world! With stupid people! And no stupid automail!" Ed was screaming. "_I'd rather die than stay here!_"

Hohenheim went stiff. Edward's words felt like a knife, but Ed was oblivious to Hohenheim's change. Ed was chilled to the bone from the floor he was too weak to escape.

With sadness Hohenheim imagined Ed lying abandoned on the wood, mentally flailing, but physically too handicapped to even crawl. In that prison, for exactly sixty one minutes, every second became harder as the cold came. The floor's unyielding surface ached Ed's frozen body, and the best he could manage was too feeble to push himself in any direction.

Sixty one minutes of that hell was all there was, all there would be, until Hohenheim returned, and then Ed knew what would happen. Knew this tottering old man who abandoned his wife and sons, who Ed despised, would come pick him up off the floor and wipe his ass like a toddler because he couldn't do it himself.

"Better dead than living like this!" Ed cried, head falling back with exhaustion. "Living like a vegetable," Ed sobbed, body limp with anguish. Hohenheim tried to explain to Ed how this was not so, but Ed didn't want to hear it. "I hate myself, I hate what I am." Hohenheim offered words of comfort, encouragement and hope, but Ed was beside himself and drowning in insatiable self pity. "I should have died crossing the gate!" Ed choked.

All at once Hohenheim felt his sadness smother under the new flame of awaking anger.

"I should have died and let it have me!"

Hohenheim remembered Trisha's slender form sitting half asleep and utterly exhausted in the rocking chair they had placed in the nursery. In her arms was a sleeping little boy who, while teething, screamed for hours until he lost all strength to do so. _"What was I supposed to do?" _she asked, looking embarrassed she was discovered. She had sat up all night holding him. _"He was crying and I couldn't let him cry."_ Ed was asleep. Wrapped in the very same blanket Trisha would wrap Alphonse in. _"He means everything to me,"_ she confessed.

"I should have died," Ed cried.

Hohenheim lifted his hand before he realized what he was doing and, in one quick and deliberately harsh movement, he slapped his hand across Ed's cheek. Ed's face whirled to the side. Something as gentle as half the strength Hohenheim used would have caused this. In this state, Ed could barely manage to stabilize his head, but that was not the point of the slap. It was meant to be harsh, it was meant to be serious, and Hohenheim wanted it clear.

"Stop this Edward," he ordered, voice tight with anger.

The loud sound of his adult palm meeting Ed's soft wet cheek was intense and unmistakable. Ed startled so entirely with the blow and Hohenheim's angry tone, his body shook in a moment of fear, before latching to Hohenheim for safety.

"Get a hold of yourself," Hohenheim ordered, scolding Ed firmly. "This is not the son I know. You are still recovering. You fell, you need some help. Don't bank your accomplishments on one afternoon."

Ed held his breath directly after the slap, and all at once it rushed from his lungs. His eyes had closed, and now he reopened them slowly, but kept them cast in the direction of the blow.

Hohenheim let his tone drop back to kindness, and gently he stroked a hand into Ed's hair and brushed the bangs from Edward's face. "Now look at me." Ed ignored this request. "Look at me," Hohenheim strengthened his tone and Ed responded. Ed lifted his gaze timidly, upset with his obedience, but also curious in a fragilely painful way. "Are you all right?" Ed kept silent, but Hohenheim had decided before the slap things were going to organize. He was ready to participate to make sure this happened. "Are you?" he pressed.

Ed gave a slow resentful blink. "Yes," Ed whispered, anger draining as if a cork had been knocked off and pressure was escaping.

Hohenheim gave a firm nod, before turning Ed back to face the toilet. "I won't undress you."

"I do it myself," Ed snapped, voice weak and almost scared. "Don't touch me intimately, and don't undress me."

Hohenheim nodded, committing Ed's orders to memory. For some reason he crossed a line with Ed when doing these casual things and he did not want to.

Ed wiped at his face with his flesh hand before reaching down to his open fly and struggling. "What…" Ed muttered, tipping his head forward to see. He was digging into his fly like you would a pocket. "What the heck am I wearing? It…" Hohenheim steadied himself for the best way to describe the underwear he had dressed Ed in. "Hohenheim!" Ed yelled, startling Hohenheim from his thoughts. The sound of his frantic name from Ed's voice was like a gun shot firing. "What the heck is this! I can't get out! I can't freaking—I can't—I am going to freaking!"

"Ed, keep calm," Hohenheim reassured quickly. Ed's body felt like a slab of wood in stiffness and much of it was moving ramrod straight.

"I am going to piss my pants, I am not kidding!"

"It's a cotton, and there are buttons." Germany's underwear ran its buttons down the front and lower into the fly for obvious reasons. In Amestris what this country called drawers were called boxers, and the shirt was not attached. Ed was not familiar with wearing something so large, or being unable to reach into his fly. Hohenheim was sure he could feel Ed trying to find the slit that should exist in the fabric, or the pant rim to what he was wearing and couldn't. "Can you feel the buttons?"

"Who makes—what the…fucking…" Ed was moving frantically before pressing his hips forward. "Shut your eyes!" Even though Ed wouldn't have known, Hohenheim obliged, and directly after Ed's shaky and insistent scream, came the sound of a drizzling tap. Ed choked with relief to the sound of his piss finding water.

Hohenheim felt a mixture of guilt and sadness things had matured to this point. "Ed it's been almost two days." _Yes it had been two. _"You've gone almost two days without using the facilities." Ed was groaning relief and didn't care. "From now on, you should go every morning after waking and before bed so it does not amount to this."

Ed was still consumed with emptying his bladder, which seemed capable of housing gallons, and so his anger was minimal. "You're setting a schedule for me?" Ed asked, voice thick with resentment and buried fear. It was possible for Hohenheim to set a schedule Ed would have to follow unless he wanted to result in radically embarrassing himself. There simply wasn't another way to cross the incredibly far twenty foot distance to the lavatory doorway where the wheelchair would not fit. Hohenheim was the only acting ferry from Point A to Point B. Ed also had to acknowledge he couldn't fight the man off of himself with only one arm, so if Hohenheim so chose, he'd wind up where ever the man put him.

"I am advising you," Hohenheim corrected. "It is your choice whether or not you follow such advice."

Ed came to finish, struggling as he ended and finding it difficult to adjust himself. Hohenheim could feel Ed fumbling with his pants and tried to imagine living under the handicap such skill and effort was needed just to take yourself to the lavatory. Ed's body was weak, he had only one arm, and his leg often refused to support him.

Ed's frame gave a quick shake, as if cold, and then Ed whispered, "Son of a bitch." Ed was looking down at his hips and tried to reach lower toward his thighs. "I…" Ed muttered. "My hand…" Ed's voice was crumbling into a pitifully brittle tone.

Hohenheim opened his eyes and politely looked only to Ed's face, but it was lost in the golden bangs hanging toward the floor.

Ed felt Hohenheim's gaze and bristled immediately, as if caught in a heinous act. He shrugged his shoulders upward in awkward defensiveness. "Well my—it—it was an accident," Ed croaked, sounding sick with humiliation. "I'll clean it up."

Hohenheim took a step backward, disengaging them from the toilet and Ed sputtered a quick uncertain breath. "That's all right," Hohenheim said softly. _The only thing to do with this was to stay supportive. _He reached around to Ed's stomach and tried to correct Ed's shirt, but Ed stopped him with a grip much stronger than he would have thought Ed capable of.

"I…got some…on my pants," Ed whispered, bowing his head forward in utter defeat. The act made Ed look as if he were sinking, and Hohenheim imagined Ed's failure must feel like a weight too great to stand erect.

"Ed, that's okay." Ed did not feel as if this were okay_._ Ed did not feel as if any of this were okay, and stared down at the floor with bile threatening to come up his throat. He was sick with it. Sick with all of it. "I am not moving…" Hohenheim said cautiously. Ed lifted his head with a bit of confusion. "…understand, I am not trying to do so, but I am now asking, can you take off your pants?"

"My…" Ed whispered, before bringing his sole hand to the button and unfastening them. Immediately they dropped to Ed's single ankle and left the boy in the white linen top and visible cotton bottom half of his German underwear. Ed plucked at the side with a bit of curious disdain.

"You'll feel much better in a hot bath," Hohenheim said, stepping back again. He was not going to ask Ed if he needed to be washed, and certainly wasn't going to give the boy the humiliation of a rag. "How about it, would you like one?" Ed pulled his ankle free of his pants and didn't answer. The fact Ed did not protest meant consent or at the very least forbearance Hohenheim could work with.

Hohenheim reached to the brass knob and twisted it quickly hoping the water wouldn't give him any trouble. Ed had a hand under his shirt and was following the buttons up his stomach and popping them one at a time. The hot water responded, and the rattling pipes spit into the cold enamel tub in angry bursts.

Carefully Hohenheim shifted Ed to sit on the rim of the tub and immediately felt uneasy with Ed's pale and grief stricken expression. It was as if something had been murdered in Ed's features and slid half way down his face but not yet dropped away. Ed was degraded and mortified to a point the noose around his soul was almost too tight to handle. He was numb and pliable, and in-between the loud and angry thoughts that welled up inside him there was a haunting silence of nothingness.

"Ed, it's probably best if you just let yourself relax and…not think about it." Hohenheim didn't say what 'it' was, and Ed didn't look as if he could either. "You are doing well," Hohenheim reassured. "I wouldn't say so otherwise." Ed had unbuttoned half his underwear, but had moved his flesh arm to hold the side of the tub once sitting on the thin ledge. "Let's get your shirt up." Hohenheim approached Ed cautiously, but as soon as he was in range Ed raised his flesh arm in a cooperative way. Hohenheim lifted the shirt over Ed's head and tossed it to the boy's discarded pants.

With an exhausted expression crippled with misery Ed looked down at his torso and the half buttoned cotton garb before lifting a confused gaze to Hohenheim.

"This world has some…different fashions." Hohenheim was going to leave it at that. Ed's expression tightened the slightest bit looking perplexed. "This is what a gentlemen's underwear is like here." Hohenheim stepped up and unbuttoned the top four buttons Ed had not managed. This split Ed's underwear from his collar bone to his upper left thigh.

Ed brushed the right sleeve off his mangled shoulder and used the extra fabric to then wiggle his left arm out. "I almost couldn't get my dick out of it." Ed pressed the cotton down to his waist, and when Hohenheim stepped up to him, was cooperative in the lift that raised him to stand and caused the thin garment to drop to the floor.

With great attentiveness Hohenheim helped Ed into the tub and then considered his son. Ed sat in the pooling water with his hair hanging off his scalp in thin strands and looked lost and abused. Ed didn't comment on the temperature or even move after he was placed, and Hohenheim found this disturbing. _Maybe Ed had hit his head after all_. "Ed, are you sure you're all right?"

Ed's expression tightened, cranking his mouth downward into a sharp frown that wobbled his bottom lip. "Can we…" Ed whispered, looking unable to put anymore strength into his voice. "…not…talk anymore." Hohenheim felt unsatisfied and worried with this response. Ed could tell. "I…just…" Ed croaked. "I just pissed on myself." Hohenheim was silent. There wasn't much else that could be said. "I just pissed on myself," Ed repeated, wallowing in it. "I pissed on the floor like an infant."

"Ed," Hohenheim said, firming his voice to stop the progression of Ed's self dwelling sorrow. The quiet but very real thought of Ed suffering depression flittered through Hohenheim's mind but he forced it away. There was medically little Amestris could do for depression, and this world's medicines were proving much the same. "Ed, we'll address this so we can handle it better going forward. It is not executed failure."

Ed was surprised with this answer. He looked up with a hopeful expression of relief such a straight forward and factual approach was Hohenheim first response. Somehow it was unexpected, even while obvious. _They were both scientists after all._

Hohenheim knew he was ill-equipped with children, and even his own children, but in a few sect areas he had some small experience, and suddenly, he felt he remembered this. He had witnessed this before. Alphonse wet the bed many times, and every time he cried. The boy seemed overwhelmed with shame when this happened, even at such a young and mentally undeveloped state. To calm him Trisha tickled him, and told him she did not mind. She told Alphonse he would get better, and this made the boy happy. Hohenheim imitated this now with Ed, and Trisha's tactics, as always, seemed flawless.

Hohenheim reached forward and stopped the water with the tub half full. "I am not going to be able to fill this today." Ed didn't comment. In silence the intense warmth of the water had caused him to begin shivering and nearly everywhere he was coated in goosebumps. "I am afraid with the rising inflation I need to cut back on utilities until I see what the future will bring."

Ed snorted a small hmp. "You should have seen my bank account back there," Ed said thoughtfully. Hohenheim retrieved his washcloth from the sink and lathered it with soap. "We would have lived like kings." Hohenheim dipped the sudsy cloth into the warm tub and brought it to Ed's back. Ed twitched with the sudden warm contact and took hold of the tub rim for balance.

Hohenheim knelt at the side and scrubbed Ed's back in large circles as if he were cleaning a glass window. "It makes you realize how valueless material possessions can be," he said softly. He had learned this the hard way, when on one particular journey he lost most of everything he'd ever owned: his house, his wife, his sons, and his entire world. Left with a suitcase holding a few books in a language that didn't exist, maps that were useless, a bottle of scotch, a few extra pieces of clothing in a style this country didn't observe, and one photo of his family, he had wept like no man was made to weep. Material possessions were owned by the plains in which they existed. The only thing that came with you, that the gate could not take unless traded, were your memories.

Ed shifted forward the slightest inch when Hohenheim ran the washcloth up to Ed's shoulders. Hohenheim assumed this was the pressure of his hand, before noticing what seemed a discomforted shifting from Ed's right thigh. Lolled between it and the left was Ed's flaccid penis, and Hohenheim realized slowly, that Ed, without being able to, wanted to cover it for some privacy. Suddenly he felt foolish for not having realized or even entertained the idea Ed might desire something. How old was his son now? Certainly old enough. Repetition in this act did not necessarily make it easier. "I can get you something for your lap," he offered kindly

Ed was glaring into the water, and the offer soured his expression further. "It doesn't really matter now," Ed said flatly. Ed's voice softened, as if drifting away. "Really…what difference does it make." Ed did not sound as if he believed this, and Hohenheim paused in his washing. For a moment he felt he was hearing something between Edward's words Ed wasn't speaking, and just before he dismissed it for his own uncertainty, or even insecurity with the boy, he realized what he was hearing was a signal. _Ed's signal_. One of the signals Trisha knew how to read, and he found memory of her flawlessly doing so.

She was tucking Alphonse into bed at no older than three. Alphonse's plump thumb was in his mouth and he was wearing pajamas that covered his feet to keep him warm along side Ed. After Al was laid in bed she would tuck him in, pet his head, and look to her oldest son who always struggled to stay awake until he simply couldn't anymore. _"Ed, do you want me to check for monsters?"_ Trisha would ask, smiling at the tiny four year old hugging what he called his bear, but looked more like a brown animal of no definition. Pinako had made it for the boy. Always Ed held it upside down, with the fluff of its bottom inches from the boy's chin. _"No,"_ Ed whispered, fighting his heavy eyelids. _"Monsters aren't real mom."_ Trisha would check the closet and under the bed anyway. Then she would kiss Ed's forehead and Alphonse's cheek and shut the light off behind her. _Trisha heard what he could not hear_, and Hohenheim was coming to believe she heard Edward's heart, when he could only guess to the boy's mind.

Hohenheim reached to the sink and took the small face cloth resting at its side. He draped it over the tub's side in easy reach.

Ed glanced at this action, but sat still until Hohenheim began wetting his hair. Hohenheim had placed a small china bowl beneath the tub and toward the back claw foot specifically for this. It was tiny, but deep, and on the third pour of water Ed slowly dragged the rag from the tub's side and over his lap for privacy.

Neither of them spoke on this, and Hohenheim fought the tiny smile of pride he felt well inside him.

"What did you do? On the other side?" Hohenheim asked, watching Ed's hair turn into soft flowing sheets of gold as the water trickled through it.

"I was a state alchemist."

Hohenheim stopped pouring, completely taken back. He was startled Ed joined the military. That Ed committed himself so entirely to such a politically motivated and corrupted power. Had his son really grown to appreciate state power so greatly? Or did he seek military development in some innocently naive sense of justice. _As if man could ever truly compose an army for the weak._

Ed looked back over his shoulder when Hohenheim stopped the bath. For a moment it seemed as if he were curious, or perhaps offended. _You got a problem with that? _But Ed's expression was something as close to patient as Hohenheim had seen since Ed's arrival. It was thoughtful, tiredly analytical, and filled with more consideration than insult. "Alphonse didn't though," Ed said softly, continuing his answer.

Hohenheim retrieved the small jar of baking powder he kept in reach and sprinkled the top of Ed's head like he would season a dish. "I heard the exam is very heard to pass."

"I studied for a year," Ed said, and Hohenheim was surprised. Ed looked at the baking powder which missed his head and flecked into the water like snow. "What is this stuff?" Ed asked, abandoning his grip on the tub and giving a small speck of it a jab with his finger. "Powder?" Ed asked softly, before looking back. "I don't have any bugs," Ed said, sounding gravely insulted. "What is this you're putting on me?" Ed looked scared of the jar Hohenheim held and ducked forward defensively before reaching for his hair and touching it.

Hohenheim broke out laughing. "It's baking powder." Ed's confusion was not resolved with this. "Ed, it's to wash your hair. You don't think I would assume a son of mine is infected with vermin like a common…" Hohenheim stopped himself when Ed's eyes narrowed.

"A son of yours, huh," Ed said softly, giving his head a rub. "Why is it in powdered form?" Hohenheim offered the jar and Ed looked inside carefully as if something might jump out.

"It's always in powdered form Ed." That was why it was called backing powder. "At the farm house it was mixed with water and kept in a bottle like that. Remember Trisha shaking it?" Ed did remember this, and looked skeptically at Hohenheim as if it were more likely the man were reading his memories than there to witness the days forming them. "I've just…never been as detailed I am afraid." It was easier to leave it in powdered form, for both cooking and hygiene. "Has Amestris developed a better product?" he asked, with mild curiosity. Europe was on the brink of doing so as well, but nothing seemed to go mainstream. Most were unfortunately rather similar to baking power minus a herbal scent here or there.

"I never read the ingredient label," Ed said miserably, dropping his hand back into the water. "So I don't know."

"How old were you when you became a state alchemist?"

"Eleven when I studied and twelve when I passed." Ed's voice was factual, and although Ed was proud of his accomplishments this was old news.

Hohenheim slipped his hands into Ed's hair and scrubbed from side to side as if waving. Immediately Ed's flesh hand left the rag on his lap and shot to the side of the tub for balance.

Hohenheim stopped, feeling foolish. "I am sorry Ed." He scolded himself mentally for not remaining mindful of Ed's weakness. Carefully he reduced the force of his hands and washed in slow soft circles the way Trisha had taught him to wash her mother's china. "Alphonse did not pass?" he asked, curious. Was Alphonse back in Amestris strutting about as a solider as well? A military weapon, or child too young to understand he was a military weapon?

"Only one of us was needed to have a connection. Better me than him," Ed said bitterly. Ed's hair was turning to paste as if glue had been poured into it. Hohenheim stopped scrubbing and began a massage on Ed's scalp. "You understand," Ed said, voice and body relaxing with the treatment. "You've always been into the politics of it all." Hohenheim didn't comment on this. He wasn't certain what this insinuation meant, or how deep one really needed to be involved to be '_into the politics of it all_.' "How do you know my colonel?" Ed asked, changing topics and lowering his voice to a quiet, almost shy tone.

Hohenheim stopped washing with a bit of confusion. "A colonel?"

"Roy Mustang," Ed snapped, turning quickly to look back over his shoulder. Ed's face was serious, more serious than Hohenheim expected, and he lowered his hands to the water feeling as if there were suddenly more happening than he understood. "_Colonel _Roy Mustang," Ed said, cheeks flushing with a rising fever. "Flame Alchemist Colonel Roy Mustang." Or was it a blush Ed was managing through his fatigue?

"The name is familiar," Hohenheim confessed, gesturing Ed tip his head back so he could begin to rinse. Ed narrowed his eyes with distrust, as if rinsing his hair was serving only as a distraction. "I am afraid I have forgotten a lot of people from back then." This was not a lie, and Ed looked discouraged. "Perhaps I will remember with time." Ed tipped his head back and was completely silent as Hohenheim rinsed the white paste into bubbles. In fat shimmering globes they collected at the water line at the base of Ed's back. Then Hohenheim rose to his feet and unplugged the tub. He grabbed a towel and stood drying his hands while considering Ed skinny self. "Ed, you're beginning to look ill," Hohenheim said, offering Ed the towel.

Ed brought the towel to his head and began trying to dry his hair with one hand. "I've been ill since I got here," Ed said miserably, sounding none too impressed and none too concerned. Hohenheim watched Ed press the towel to his roots, pause, and then relocate for another strong press. The towel was absorbing the extra water, but not efficiently, and this method would not work on hair not fixed to Ed's skull. Hohenheim knelt back at the side of the tub and rubbed at the towel as if trying to polish Ed's head.

Ed was calm, and seemed comforted and pleased with attention to his hair. Despite the surroundings and physical discomfort which still seemed present, Ed looked at peace being clean. Hohenheim was glad he could manage this much. "We need to get you out of the tub and into bed," Hohenheim said, tossing the damp towel aside and grasping a new one. Warm baths seemed to destroy Ed's energy level, and the boy was tired with heavy eyes.

Hohenheim reached into the tub and brought the towel to Ed's chest, causing Ed to raise his flesh arm with confusion. Hohenheim wrapped the towel about Ed's torso, with Ed's cheeks hot pink with fever. Ed watched the towel tighten about his middle with a sense of befuddled fascination, like a child witnessing the process to a common action for the first time. In Ed's case this was true, and as soon as Hohenheim had the boy wrapped, he scooped Ed from the tub and began carrying him back toward the day bed.

Ed went wire hard with the lift, and Hohenheim worried about the deep red color in Ed's face. "I said no carrying me around!" Ed cried, sounding a bit frightened his orders were so easily ignored.

"You're wet," Hohenheim said flatly. "I don't want you to catch cold."

"I don't care!" Ed cried, giving a single squirming wiggle. Ed reached to the base of the towel framing his torso and tugged it downward for privacy. "I don't want to be carried!" Ed slipped a bit in Hohenheim's grasp and startled.

"I don't want you ill."

"I don't want excuses!" Ed slipped a bit lower and snatched Hohenheim's lapel in an attempt to hang on. "If I say don't carry me, you don't carry me!"

Hohenheim crossed the short distance from the lavatory to the day bed relatively quickly, but even in that short time he could feel Ed's damp body soaking his shirt. He couldn't dry Ed with the boy in the tub, and he understood, without either of them having suggested or acknowledged it, that taking Ed from the tub and either holding Ed so he could dry himself, or drying the boy, was simply too awkward and invasive for either of them. So Edward was wet, and the weather was cold. In this world Hohenheim had seen people become wet, and become cold, and they grew sick and died. Medicine was not strong enough to stop it when it got into the lungs or into the intestines, and Ed's lungs did not sound strong.

"Tomorrow we'll see about getting your automail together," Hohenheim said. He had decided, from the moment he saw the large paper wrapped packages, that he would refer to them as automail even though automail did not exist in this world. That he would, making every effort to provide an Amestris comfort in a world without a single one, remember to use the language that Ed recognized as home, in hopes it would in some way bring Ed peace.

Ed looked up with the fatigued and pink expression of someone who'd fallen asleep in the sun. His exhaustion seemed extreme, but there was hope and a half asleep sense of excitement in his golden eyes. Ed brightened as much as Hohenheim had seen him do so. "Then you'll begin to feel more like you're old self." Hohenheim set Ed down in the day bed, and Ed closed his eyes with immediate need for rest. Hohenheim stood up slapping at the arm he had under Ed's neck. The bath water that had clung stubbornly to Ed's body had soaked right through.

"Can I put my automail on tomorrow?" Ed muttered, reaching to the towel wrapping his lower chest to upper thigh and gripping it like you would a blanket. Ed was cold, but didn't seem to fully comprehend that he was. "Can I put it on?" Ed asked, voice growing faint with sleep coming forcefully.

Hohenheim left for Ed's bedroom. He had placed the few items he'd bought for the boy in his dresser even though Ed still preferred to use the daybed. He retrieved underwear and a nightgown and returned. Ed looked overly naked lying in the sheets wearing his towel. He appeared pale and fragile, like a flame dwindling to amber he seemed as if he were teetering on the edge of being snuffed out. Hohenheim was disturbed with the same level of vulnerability Ed was disgusted by. Quickly he set the nightgown along side Ed's shredded shoulder and began loosening the towel.

"Get it now," Ed said, grabbing Hohenheim's hand in a sleepy uncoordinated grasp. Ed woke up the bit he had relaxed. "I'll put it on now."

"I don't think it's ready yet Ed." Hohenheim jerked Ed's towel to his waist and Ed startled with the pull on his body and began quickly waking up to the situation. "But with some modifications I think I could improve it."

"Improve it?" Ed asked, slowly and almost dumbly. Hohenheim fit Ed's ankle and stump thigh into the bottom of the underwear and hefted it up well past the towel before pulling the towel out one side the way you would a belt. Ed lifted his hips to help and pushed his single arm through the sleeve of the one piece as it raised. It was thin cotton, and Ed reached to his waist and modestly fastened the buttons that served as his fly. Hohenheim worked on the rest. Pulling the cotton over Ed's hungry looking stomach and navel, before upward where his ribs rippled his body down to the last one. "How would…" Ed asked, giving a heavy sigh once his underwear was completed. Hohenheim grabbed the nightgown and bunched it into a cotton ring in his hands. "How would you improve…" He brought it to Ed's line of sight and Ed looked at it. For a moment Ed was still, staring at the linen puzzled, before lifting his head and pulling it closer. Hohenheim looped the neck hole on easily, and tugged the nightgown down to Ed's shoulders. Ed was wiggling his arm in at once, looking more than eager for clothing. "How would…why would…" Ed muttered, cooperating when Hohenheim fit the gown downward over Ed's slender chest. "Over there…" Ed began before losing his thought. He was becoming confused with the remaining amount of cloth in Hohenheim's hands. When Hohenheim began working it under Ed's hips he spoke. "What?" Ed asked, watching Hohenheim continue pulling it downward. "What is this?" Ed asked, sounding a bit alarmed, as if he were being tricked into a sack for capture. Ed wasn't able to identify with what he was being dressed in, but Ed was beginning to recognize it.

"Well…" Hohenheim said, finding it a bit odd Ed's concern brought a smile to his face and a brief chuckle. Ed had said the same thing the first time he saw peanut butter. After grabbing it, and ripping his hand back with globs of it clinging to every finger, and whole nuts dripping off in lumps, Ed had looked up at Hohenheim with an expression of wild alarm and said, _"What is this?"_ Ed wiggled his fingers trying to get it off, and Hohenheim pushed one of them into the boy's mouth. _"You'll like it,"_ Hohenheim had said. This was true, and Ed sucked his entire hand clean.

"Ed, I'll have to explain the slight difference in dress here."

"Dress," Ed said flatly. "Yes, it's a dress." Ed gestured to the length of himself with one slender finger before shoving Hohenheim's right hand away. "Stop it," Ed ordered angrily. "Get this off me Hohenheim I…" Ed trailed off, when Hohenheim politely ignored the shove and continued until the nightgown was adjusted to Ed's single ankle. "Is…" Ed whispered. Ed watched Hohenheim pluck at the bottom of the nightgown to make sure it was pulled taunt. "Is this okay?" Ed asked, tugging at the front of the linen nightgown on his chest.

"It is standard." Hohenheim nodded. "Everyone wears them here." Ed gave a soft, but deliberate, groan of exhausted frustration for this world and the _stupid _parts of this world. "What were you saying?" Hohenheim asked. He collected the throw cover Ed had taken a liking to with Ed looking at him blankly. "You said, over there…"

A ghost of a smile swept through Ed's features. "…over there I could transform my arm," Ed said, smiling the sloppy lopsided smile of a drunk. "I would shape it into a blade." Ed lifted his flesh arm the slightest bit and made a weak fist. "I fought that way."

Hohenheim smiled with the innovation. "Did you have many wars to face?" He brought the blanket to Ed's chest and folded it down well. The dainty make of the linen seemed to frame Ed's petite structure in a slighted way. It compelled him to wrap the boy well.

"I imagine no more than anyone else."

Hohenheim paused with his fingertips beneath Ed's thighs and tucking the blanket in tight. He looked up slowly feeling stunned and even impressed with the solid maturity of the answer. _I imagine no more than anyone else_. Was his son, this walking weapon, this walking prodigy, this walking handicapped soul of determination, truly capable of remembering how human he was on the most basic foundation while swallowing all else at such a fantastic rate? Softly, and without Hohenheim realizing it, a smile came to his face, turning his mouth upward as this thought bloomed. He felt a swell of pride for the life his son was living. For the fact that Edward _was_ still living, and that tiny heart, at one time no larger than a coin, had come from Trisha's body and just kept beating. _Can I save the bee?_ Edward had asked. _If I give it back its stinger?_

Ed twisted his expression with defensive confusion when Hohenheim stopped adjusting his blankets and started staring. "What?" Ed demanded.

Hohenheim returned to his work quickly, as if reanimating, and tucked Ed's single foot tightly into the blanket before stepping to the top of the daybed. "Goodnight Edward," Hohenheim said, leaning down and kissing Ed's forehead.

Ed tensed with confusion when Hohenheim approached, and when Hohenheim lowered Edward's tension increased until he flinched with the kiss as if expecting something painful or damaging.

Hohenheim raised, stroking a hand through Edward's wet bangs and gave Ed's troubled expression a kind smile. "Rest," he said, retrieving the wet towel. "You can call out to me if you need me."

Hohenheim left to straighten the lavatory and he felt Ed's eyes, even now very tired, on his back. Just as he stepped into the tiny room he heard Ed grunt a soft sound of reluctant approval before muttering, "Old man."

* * *

And there is Chapter 5. THANK YOU for reading this far, I hope you're enjoying it!

However…to those of you who have: silently read this far without commenting, or alerted my penname or this story, and not left a review…shame on you. : ) If you were just now feeling satisfied with what you read, and were going to hit the Back button, or move onto another story, without leaving any semblance of evidence you were here…shame on you! : )Writing takes hours. To those of you reading who also write, you know what I mean. You share this pain.

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Hope to see you next week! We will begin to pick up momentum.

Chapter 6: _Motor Control_ will be posted Friday 2/8/13

(Special thanks to some consistent reviewers who make me look forward to posting just to hear what you think about new chapters: Colliequest, kash30032000, sparklybutterfly42, P.P.V.V, Joker Oak, gpianist Vampy... You guys rock!)


	6. Motor Control

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Six  
_Motor Control_

- mirage –

Of the first edibles that Hohenheim offered Edward, was Fruchttee tea and croissants from the bakery. Both happened to be food and drink that Edward liked very much, and it was completely accidental on Hohenheim's part.

Early morning, after Ed rose with a frame rattling twitch that rocked the daybed enough to stir Hohenheim from his light sleep at four AM, Hohenheim had fried German sausage. The Bratwurst, made of minced pork and beef, came in plump three inch links, and with prices rising and the mark falling, each one had cost what four would have several months ago.

By five AM Hohenheim learned that although Ed seemed to enjoy teas and breads, what his son really liked was meat. Ed wanted up and wanted to eat after only five minutes of the sausage frying.

Hohenheim helped Ed from the daybed and to the modest wooden and table and chairs. With Ed's poor health journeying to the table to eat had previously been unnecessary. Hohenheim kept Ed with foods he could eat with his hands, and ones which would not spill or drip so they were easy. Today, be it the smell of frying meat, or Ed's returning strength, Ed was certain he wanted to get to the table.

Hohenheim gave Ed a plate of Bratwurst, a piece of bread, and sweet German mustard. Ed managed to eat an entire sausage while Hohenheim turned off the stove, and brought his own dish to the table.

Working with one hand, Ed ate without cutting his food, and instead turned his fork about his mouth without ever taking it away from his lips. Hohenheim was a bit shocked. While chewing, he watched with a sense of fascinated disagreement. Until he understood what was happening, he was not going to comment. Ed seemed complicated, but almost persnickety, and Hohenheim was learning it was often best to wait and discover why Ed was doing what he was doing, before assuming there was no reasoning behind the method.

Ed finished his second sausage with Hohenheim watching and than sat for a long moment of heavy breathing to recover. When Ed sought after the third Hohenheim stopped eating and stared.

Ed was struggling to stab the last link as if it were scurrying around his plate. He missed it four times, before managing to plunge in his fork. Then once secured, Ed raised it to his mouth like a toddler learning how to use a spoon while not a hundred percent certain where their mouth was. Ed's hand was unsteady, and the sausage wasn't aiming for his eagerly open mouth, it was too far left. As it neared, Ed realized and adjusted his head further to the left even while his hand was wondering back to the right.

When Alphonse was one, and barely eating simply by desire not to eat, Trisha had nearly driven herself into low level hysterics convinced he wasn't getting enough nourishment. She'd tried everything to get Alphonse to eat, and the tactic she employed the most, was swinging a filled spoon through the air toward the target of Alphonse's mouth with Alphonse laughing and watching her. More often than not, Alphonse would quickly whirl his head to the side once the spoon made it to his lips, but on Trisha's lucky occasions, she was able to slip it into his laughing cheeks before Alphonse realized the spoon was in proximity to strike.

That lazy dramatic swooping brought excitement into the eating process, and today, watching Ed follow his own fork with his mouth, Hohenheim realized Edward's detailed hand and eye coordination seemed to have stayed stubbornly in Amestris.

"Ed." Hohenheim didn't know where to begin. He had seen Ed eat in the day bed, and Ed was fully capable of grabbing something in hand and bringing it to his mouth. He could also bring cups to his mouth. So why was a dish and cutlery disrupting everything? "Ed, what is going on," Hohenheim asked flatly. "Can you see all right?" Was it coordination or sight? Or perhaps double vision?

"I can see!" Ed snapped, plowing the sausage into the right side of his lips and cheek before sliding it into his mouth. "I am not stupid!"

Hohenheim didn't see how that statement was relevant, and lowered his own sausage. He had wrapped his in bread, and found Ed's manner of eating straight fried meat rather primitive.

Ed was eating angrily. It was obvious he was dreading further conversation so Hohenheim stood and left for the kitchen making mental note not to provide Ed with a true knife until this was clarified. He cleaned up the small mess he'd made and set a new pot of Fruchttee. "You don't want to talk about it?" he asked from the kitchen.

Ed hit the table gently with his fist. "I know what I am doing," Ed snapped, sounding furious. "I am just…" Ed didn't sound as if he knew what the problem was. "…having some trouble." This was an understatement for adolescents who could no longer eat with utensils. "I think I'll get better."

"You can see?" This was Hohenheim's biggest concern.

"Yes, I can see!" Ed snapped. "Don't you think we both would have noticed if I couldn't!"

Hohenheim wasn't going to answer this. Questions Ed asked in anger were better left alone. "I don't want you to take offense, but I am not going to give you a knife going forward." Hohenheim wiped up his modest counter and Ed grunted a sound of outrage but didn't argue. "Do you want any more?" Hohenheim stepped out of the tiny room and Ed had his bread in hand and was eating easily looking hideously angry. "Ed?" Ed shook his head.

Hohenheim approached the table and took his own dish before extending a hand. Ed looked at it with confusion while chewing before quickly lifting his own and handing it over.

Ed's movement was smooth, and the dish wasn't wobbling the way Ed's fork was. Just before Ed handed off the plate, Hohenheim took his hand away, and the dish dipped downward and derailed because Ed was expecting purchase.

"So now you're going to be a dick about things!" Ed snapped, looking flabbergasted with the childish prank. Ed dropped the dish to the wooden table angrily. "Then clean it yourself!"

Hohenheim again extended his hand, but this time as a fist with only his pointer finger extended. "Give me your plate," he asked kindly. Ed's eyebrows shot up with disbelief. "Give it to my finger. Just humor me." Ed's shocked expression became anger and Ed looked at Hohenheim's hand with annoyance.

"What?"

"Humor me."

Ed lifted his dish easily, and extended it. The movement was identical, but shortly after Ed raised it, his coordination seemed to falter and the plate began to wobble just as the fork did. Ed was horrified and quickly went to sit the dish down. Hohenheim snatched it, and Ed looked up with guilty alarm, as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn't rather than trying his hardest.

"It's your fine motor control," Hohenheim said. He had been around long enough to at least diagnosis this much. "Don't let it worry you." He took the dishes to the kitchen. "It may be because you're sick, or perhaps you have some fluid in your ears." The human body was very susceptible to loosing control of its own equilibrium. "It will pass Ed." Hohenheim set everything in the sink and left the room. Ed was quiet. He sat staring down to the table with unseeing eyes like a man trying to hold on to a ledge giving way. "Don't let it worry you," Hohenheim repeated. Ed looked up, and he gave the boy a reassuring smile. "Now," he said optimistically. "Let's work on your automail."

Ed was excited and insistent they start and not stop for anything. Hohenheim offered to get the boy clothing, but Ed refused. Although Ed did not seem to overly care for the style of Europe, his hours at the window, and the clothing Hohenheim had provided him explained why that single Amestrian outfit he had arrived in was not appropriate. All black, and black leather would not be accepted, so it was packed into the top drawer of his dresser, and there it lay like another broken piece of home.

Ed said he wanted to help with his automail, and without beginning what felt the suicidal task of explaining what limitations prosthetics had in this world, Hohenheim instead asked Ed to record everything he knew about Amestrian automail and his own. Surprisingly, Ed was pleased to do so. He sat at the table in his nightgown with his single hand writing and sketching furiously onto the paper Hohenheim provided. Although Ed kept reciting the fact he was a novas, he knew an impressive amount about details as fine as the screws and the make and manner of their placement. He understood much of his suspension, the craftsmanship of the metal in the design's layers, and much about the internal port, which, unfortunately, was now useless information.

Hohenheim loved the aura of peace and enjoyment that came to Ed as he worked. Pencil scrawling frantically, Hohenheim imagined this was how Edward had studied for much larger tasks in his life, and remembered when he too had once been young, alive, and doing the same. When something as trivial as learning to write, spell, and equate was actually a challenge, and in youth, a bright and new thing.

Hohenheim read Ed's work as fast as it was born. He absorbed the details of the Amestrian approach, science, and hidden use of alchemy. The accessibility of some of the metals, and the manageable cost of items refined and mined with the science were present, but went unnoticed by Ed. Ed was used to alchemy as an immediate and grander science, and in many ways was not aware of the silent effect it had on the other world. Here in Germany, what might have been graded as basic architecture to Amestris, was conquest. The size of bridges, the height of buildings, and the luxurious cathedrals that peppered the continent were made brick by brick using math and manual labor. The luxury of piping, or electricity, and something as simplistic as a sewer system, was not crafted with the sketch of an array, it took time, and teams of humans working together with organization enough to lead them.

For this reason, prosthetics in Europe were nothing in comparison to Amestris, and this was true for variety, quality, and capability. When Ed was finally done and Hohenheim had read everything twice and asked any question which came to mind, he cleared the table and added the automail parcels. He would need some time to try and merge the worlds, but Ed was impatient. He reached into the table and dragged the largest box towards himself using the twine tying it closed.

Ed was silent, like a child on Christmas morning too excited to speak while opening the largest gift first. He tore the string apart, and began hefting up the rectangular lid with his single hand while Hohenheim stood watching. Hohenheim again asked if Ed wanted to change, or take care of anything else, but Ed was deaf to his inquiries.

Ed only wanted the prosthetics. With his single hand he reached into the open box and touched everything. He pet his hand down the varnished and smoothed surface of the thin wood and plastic shell, stroked the small metal detail capping parts of the joints, and upon discovering a screw rubbed it with the pad of his middle finger looking pleasure driven and hypnotized.

_Edward was in love_.

Hohenheim wasn't expecting such an intense emotional response from the boy, but it was clear. Edward wanted the prosthetics, and he wanted them however he could get them.

"In this world you can't connect automail the way the other does," Hohenheim said, sitting down across from Ed and preparing to work. He opened the leg first, taking it apart, studying what Germany and Europe had done, and thinking carefully about what Amestris could do. He meticulously examined what little wiring there was, forced the joints to their breaking point, and peeled up the bit of cloth wrapping pieces the manufactures obviously did not want others touching.

Throughout all of this Edward was present. In the beginning he was eager, practically giddy, but two hours in fell asleep in his chair. With Hohenheim immersed in work, six hours later Ed sat patiently with a hot cup of Fruchttee before him. Edward's silence said it all, and Hohenheim lifted his gaze to the steady glaring Edward had been conducting for the last ten minutes.

"I am almost done," Hohenheim said kindly. "Try to be patient."

"I am worried you might keel over before you finish."

Hohenheim laughed down to the little screw he was twisting back into its socket. He had done all he could do and he felt pleased. "You're mother had a sassy sense of humor as well." Hohenheim lifted the false arm and considered it. "You wouldn't think so upon glancing at her, but when she wanted to, she wasn't shy." The prosthetic hand hung limply from the wrist socket. "At the most absurd times, she would spring it on me."

Ed was disgusted with this, and tightened his gaze into piercing beams. Ed did not want to talk about his mother. He did not want to hear about Hohenheim's wife.

Hohenheim felt satisfied with the arm and approached Ed with a palm raised to calm Ed's immediate excitement."Sit still now, I am just going to see if the fit is right."

"Let's attach it."

Hohenheim stepped behind Ed's chair and Ed leaned back and tried looking over both shoulders to better see what was happening. "Ed, you need to sit still," Hohenheim said, stretching the false arm outward. "Extend your arm." Ed did so at once, and they compared the length. It was perfect, finger tip to finger tip. "This is a good fit for you," Hohenheim said happily. "Almost perfect."

"Let's attach it!" Ed said with greater urgency, growing restless in his chair. "Come on, attach it!"

Hohenheim looped the leather harness meant to strap the prosthetic into place over Ed's chest and Ed brushed the nightgown smooth to help. Once the straps, thick and heavy leather like riding reigns, were in place, Hohenheim began buckling them.

"As soon as this is in place Edward, we're proceeding as we discussed."

Ed was watching Hohenheim fasten the buckle on his upper chest, and abandoned the entranced stare of one starving for freedom to look up. "If you're worried about me taking the pain, I can do it," Ed said, sounding confident.

The arm latched on easy, and fit Edward perfectly. Ed was thrilled and touched it immediately. In a slow affectionate pet, Ed ran his hand from the shoulder to wrist and back again. Hohenheim was expecting excitement over the limbs that would set Ed free, and worked quickly. With Ed distracted he tied a butterfly knot into a piece of the packaging twine before taking hold of Ed's flesh wrist.

"Hohenheim, this really isn't necessary," Ed said, sounding only slightly nervous when Hohenheim slipped the knot over Ed's wrist. Hohenheim twisted Ed's arm behind his back and fastened it firmly to the chair with a constrictor knot. "I can take pain okay. You don't have to restrain me."

Hohenheim had said it might be painful, and so he preferred restraints, but that was an out-and-out lie. He did not think attaching the arm would be painful, and he did not doubt Ed could take pain. To Hohenhiem's benefit Ed wasn't putting this together. Excited, Ed was oblivious to how easy it would be for a pillar like him to restrain Ed's single noodle thin arm. The lack of any combative threat Ed could pose made this type of preparation inappropriate and begged the obvious question Ed was too preoccupied to realize.

"Are you sure this is necessary?" Ed complained, testing the restraint on his hand with a few tugs once Hohenheim was done.

"Believe me I think it may be necessary."

Hohenheim left the back of Ed's chair and took a few steps away to better study the boy. Outside the winter weather had begun what sounded like an awful wind. It came viciously at the day room window blowing powdered show and bits of paper up from the street.

Ed glanced at the sound of the fluttering debris tapping at the glass before turning all attention back to the arm with what could only be described as modest joy. Ed smiled, looking thrilled, even with dark crescents under his eyes, and the nightgown hanging off his shoulders like a sheet from a corpse. The smile lasted only a second. Just as suddenly as it came, it dropped from Ed's face.

"It….doesn't move?" Ed asked, sounding at first utterly confused, before a tone of growing alarm all but exploded. "It doesn't move?" Ed asked, giving his shoulders a small wiggle as if this might shake the arm awake. "I can't move it—It doesn't move!" Ed asked fearfully. "I can't move it here!"

Ed looked horrified and Hohenheim went quickly to Ed's side before realizing he had even done so. He was compelled to ease Ed's wincing expression of panic. "Edward." Hohenheim knelt at Ed's chair. "In this world technology has not breeched the gap alchemy had in yours." _This would be hard to explain._ "Because there is no law of equivalence, science must be perfected using nature's law. These are laws which are not allowed to be manipulated, only utilized."

Ed wasn't hearing any of this. "What good is automail that doesn't move!" Ed cried, beginning to squirm in his seat. Ed was trying to break free from the chair and jump start the prosthetics.

"Ed, listen to me."

Ed heard the sympathy in Hohenheim's tone and it scared ice into his veins. "What am I supposed to do with automail that doesn't move!" Ed yelled, tipping his head forward before clenching his eyes. "What good is that! If I can't move it, than I don't have an arm!" Ed's brow pinched into a painful expression of despair, and Hohenheim heard the raspy sounds of hysterics entering Ed's voice and knew tears were coming. "I thought I almost had it. I thought this would be it."

"Son." Hohenheim grabbed Ed's chin and gently lifted his head. "I have made my own improvements to this automail using the knowledge I have from both worlds." Ed's eyes flew open and widened with heart wrenching hope. "Now," Hohenheim said softly, releasing Ed's chin. "Move your arm."

Ed balked, and drew his head back with shock. "I can't!"

"Now Ed, focus," Hohenheim said firmly. He wasn't going to accept these lackluster declarations. He understood Ed was from the other world like him, and therefore, involuntarily, was a piece of Amestris in Germany whether he liked it or not.

Ed was flabbergasted with Hohenheim's stern tone. He stared up at the man in shocked panic he was being ridiculed for being unable to move a dead arm. "What do you mean!" Ed cried, jostling his top half from either side. "I just told you I can't move the damn thing!"

"Remember your real arm," Hohenheim said, wondering if that were even possible. If at Ed's age, and after something as intense as the automail, if Ed could truly remember the flesh limb he was born with. "Remember what it was like to move it, and move this one." Ed's breathing began picking up with worry. "Remember your flesh."

"I am trying!" Ed cried angrily. "I am trying to remember my damn arm! But I can't! _I can't!_ This isn't a real arm! This is a toy!"

Hohenheim felt a spark of anger and it propelled him to stand up quickly. Ed startled with the displeasure in his movement. He stepped behind Ed's chair and Ed tipped his head back at once. "What?" Ed asked, sounding nervous. "What are you doing?" Hohenheim began unbuckling the arm. "Are you—are you taking it back!" Ed asked, sounding as horrified with loosing the arm as he did with the fact it wasn't working. "Hey!" Ed demanded. "Are you taking it off!" Hohenheim unbuckled the arm and set it back on the table with controlled but angry mannerisms even Edward understood.

_Hohenheim expected more from Ed because he knew Ed was capable of more_. He was annoyed Ed would allow himself to become so emotionally agitated he blinded himself mentally. This was insult to his scientific side, and certainly insult to how they had raised the boy. He didn't know how to correct Ed on this. When he advised Ed to relax, Ed had yet to ever listen to him.

"I am yelling because I am upset!" Ed said defensively. "I am upset! What the hell kind of stupid world thinks pointless useless limbs are…" Ed silenced when Hohenheim stepped back to Ed's chair and began unbuttoning the top of his nightgown. "What are you doing?" Ed asked, voice lowering to a tone of uncertain unease. "What?" Ed's wrist tugged at the twine, but restrained Ed was powerless. Working efficiently Hohenheim opened the top of Ed's nightgown and yanked it off the crippled shoulder before unbuttoning Ed's underwear and doing the same. Ed was disturbed having his clothing removed, but didn't understand what was happening, and was cooperating in a nervous way. "Old man, get off me," Ed ordered weakly. "Stop touching me."

Hohenheim stroked his hand over Ed's wounded shoulder socket. Having done so only briefly with a washcloth in the tub, letting the pads of his fingers ripple over the injury now was intense. He could feel Edward's collar bone and Acromion in some places, but in others, only the healed swell of muscle tissue. Ed's Bursa was present but became misshapen; beneath it the tendons in Ed's rotator cuff felt like a mountain region of destroyed and healed tissue. "Can you feel that?" Hohenheim asked, tightening his grasp into a massage.

Ed looked disturbed and a little scared with the groping. "Yeah, I can feel it," Ed said bitterly. Hohenheim stopped massaging and smacked Ed's shoulder smartly as if to kill a mosquito. Ed gasped with a jerk of surprise, before yanking his top half away when Hohenheim did so again, and with greater force. "Ow!" Ed snapped, looking appalled. "I said yes! Yes, I can feel it!" Hohenheim returned his hand to Ed's reddened shoulder and pet it gently. Ed flinched, in expectation of a third blow, and said, "Stop hitting me!"

"Edward, I want your nerves to move this arm," Hohenheim said, voice confident and unyielding. _Edward would move this arm. _"So you need to focus."

Vaguely Ed remembered sitting in the living room of a house he'd burned to the ground holding a book of first year reading. Mom was good at sounding out the words but dad was not. Dad said "_Edward, you need to focus," _and made him feel bad.

"I am focusing," Ed whispered, feeling a swell of anger he could not properly understand rise within him. "No one wants it to work more than me."

"I've crafted the socket very particularly Ed, using a coherere, or cohereo grip for your nerves."

"A what?" Ed asked, twisting his expression with irritated confusion.

"That is how I am titling it. I see no reason to make it fancy."

"Titling what?" Ed snapped.

Hohenheim paused, realizing slowly, Ed was loosing part of his communication as thoroughly as one trying to read morse code with an intermittent signal. "You don't know Latin?" he asked plainly, feeling a bit stunned. Ed didn't answer. "You never learned Latin?"

"What's a Latin?" Ed asked. "A maneuver? A fighting maneuver?"

"A language," Hohenheim deadpan, unpleased with such ignorance. "I was clear with Trisha I wanted you boys to learn it. You didn't learn it?"

Ed grunted curtly. "Obviously not."

"I left provisions for you to be taught." Hohenheim felt blindsided by this. It was unlike Trisha not to invest in the boys' education. "I was clear with her."

"Maybe it slipped her mind."

"And Alphonse?"

"It would be unreasonable for only Alphonse to be taught, wouldn't you say?" Ed asked sourly. He lifted a cold gaze and Hohenheim decided to swallow this battle. As confusing as it was Trisha would ignore something she seemed to understand was important, here was Ed, as informed as only an Amestrian could be, and entirely ignorant of the root language the country had no knowledge of.

"I suppose," Hohenheim said softly, feeling sour something so important was unnecessarily missed, especially when it ironically would have been very helpful considering. "…I suppose that does explain your terrible German accent, and I suppose your manner of comprehension too." Ed seemed able to understand the verbal language well enough, but that seemed as far as it went. The worlds were not entirely compatible, but just as with science, some of the atoms were interchangeable.

"What accent!" Ed snapped, flicking his gaze upward from the automail for just a second. "I don't have an accent! What accent! Let's focus on the automail here, please. Let's get it on!"

Hohenheim gently reconnected the arm and stepped back. Ed looked disgusted sitting in the simple wooden chair wearing his pajamas and the false arm. After a moment of them both waiting, Ed said "It's not doing anything," Hohenheim considered this seriously. The base of Ed's arm still had nerve control, Pinako was skilled enough to at least manage that much. Considering he was familiar, although not well versed, with Amestris automail, he understood the port was built in and the limbs were affixed. This meant when Edward crossed the gate the ports disappeared from within his body as if they'd dissolved. He wondered if much of Ed's illness and slow recovery now was a result of having to accommodate for two stump limbs suddenly needing to close around metal sockets that abruptly removed. If this were the case, it would ironically work in their favor by making Ed's stumps freshly sensitive. It would also further increase the alterations he'd made to the false European limbs to make them more receptive to the nerves Ed was sending out so he could move them.

This meant the malfunction was most likely on Edward's part. Ed was at best either unable, or unaware, of how to control the nerve endings in his arm the way this world would need.

"Perhaps you need some motivation," Hohenheim said.

"_I am motivated!"_ Ed snapped, jerking forward in the chair with physical anger before tossing himself flush to the back. "What the _hell _is that supposed to mean Hohenheim?" Ed snarled. "That I am not focusing enough for you?" _Remember the sound an H makes, and sound out the word. You need to focus Edward._ "Well screw you! I'll tell you when I am focusing and when I am not! And I am focusing!"

Hohenheim ignored Ed's frustrated yelling and pulled his chair away from the table. "Is your tea still warm Edward?" he asked, getting a firm grip underneath the tabletop. Ed was so confused with this question he obediently leaned forward and looked into the steaming china cup.

"Yeah."

Hohenheim lifted his end of the table upward an inch. Ed nit his brow with perplexed irritation before looking at the small screw that rolled down the table top and off the side. "What are you doing?" Ed asked, becoming a bit alarmed when Hohenheim bounced the table upward jostling the tiny tea cup in front of him. "Hey! Careful you'll…" Ed's flesh hand pulled at its restraint immediately.

"I'll what?" Hohenheim asked calmly.

Ed was staring at the delicate tea cup while struggling with his restrained hand. "You'll spill it on me!" Ed said, flinching back when Hohenheim lifted the table higher and the tea cup slid an inch from the table's edge. "Hohenheim!"

"Move it," Hohenheim said softly. "Stop the cup from falling Ed."

"Listen," Ed said, glancing quickly between Hohenheim's calm face and the scalding tea. "This is a little rash, and this experiment makes no sense!" Hohenheim smiled. _So, Edward understood a science experiment when he saw one._ "There is absolutely no data to suggest…" Edward silenced when Hohenheim gave the table a jerk and the cup slid directly to the edge. "Come on!" Ed screamed, squirming in his seat. "I am not wearing anything to—I am going to get burnt!" Ed was trying to yank his flesh hand free. Ed lifted his single leg and pressed his foot to the sole rung of the chair trying to manage greater strength.

"Move the cup Edward." Hohenheim gave the table a harmless wiggle, just enough to swish the tea dangerously inside the cup. Ed hissed and continued squirming. "You need to stop it from falling." Hohenheim began a slow lift.

"Are you nuts!" Ed screamed, wide eyes locked on the hot tea. "You're going to burn my dick off!" Ed's thighs were twisting uncomfortably. "I don't need scalds across my junk on top of everything else!"

Hohenheim laughed. "If you do not will that arm to move, there is nothing I can do for you in this world son. I promise that's true." _Edward had to make the last step himself. He had to sound out the word and speak it. _"You must do it. Now I am going to lift the table."

"No don't!" Ed cried, true panic breaking free. Hohenheim ignored this and continued lifting. "Hohenheim! Stop! STOP! I can't move it!" Ed went berserk. The tea inside the tiny cup was tipping forward, beginning a slow dribble that would soon pour too heavily and tip the dainty china over like a hot soup pot falling from a stove. "Stop! It's going to fall! It's going to break! It's going to spill!" Ed watched the stream of tea begin. First a few hot drops, then a steady stream, and the cup was slipping. "Please!" The tiny saucer began to move. The cup rose from the indentation of which it was nestled with the incline still increasing. "Please! I am asking nicely!" Ed cried. "Please!" Then the cup slid forward, and Hohenheim heard its delicate clank as it slipped off the edge. The saucer fell to the floor and directly through the space where Edward's left knee should have been. Hohenheim heard it smack the hardwood and flap loudly in a few circles until coming to a complete stop.

Hohenheim returned the table and rushed around it. Ed was sitting as he was left, hot tea splashed over his thighs and navel. Hohenheim winced. The lap of Ed's nightgown was stained brown. Hohenheim felt his breath catch in his throat, w_hat had he done, _before realizing what the raised table had hid from him.

The teacup fell into Ed's right knee and fired the boiling contents out like a cannon. It would have sprayed everything from Ed's belly button to the tops of his thighs if Ed had not somehow managed to cup the fake automail hand between his legs.

Ed was hissing with the burning sting, but the metal hand had protected Ed's most valuable sensitive skin at the last moment. There were puddles on top of the false hand and in the finger crevices.

"Ed," Hohenheim whispered, feeling his rush of concerned shock give way to laughter. "Son!" He could not help himself; he gave the top of the table a hearty smack in celebration.

Ed cracked an eye and looked at Hohenheim with misery. "Don't laugh," Ed strained, gesturing to his lap with his chin. "It's burning my legs!"

"Ed, I am so sorry," Hohenheim said, with excitement "My poor boy, look at you." Ed's thighs were trembling, and Hohenheim pressed the rag to the top of each before silencing when Ed dropped a single tear to the top of the automail hand. It sat there like a diamond, and changed everything. Hohenheim felt remorse flood him. "Oh Ed," Hohenheim said softly. "I am sorry I laughed son, it was in poor taste."

Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Ed's feeling overwhelmed with shame. He had pushed Ed hard while Ed was still sick. Ed's skin was pale, the fever was ever haunting, and his eyes were always dark in his face. By journeying to the table, as a healthy able bodied person would do, the act was suggestively misleading. Ed was not able bodied, but Hohenheim had let himself become annoyed with his son's faults and forced the boy. Neglectfully he had let himself become carried away, and selfishly he had celebrated.

"I…" Ed whispered. His eyes were full with restrained tears, but he was smiling nervously. "I moved it." Ed's smile grew up his face. "I did."

Hohenheim was shocked with Ed's smile. He didn't know what it meant until Ed spoke, and then he was proud. "Yes," Hohenheim said, voice barely a whisper. He was trapped in the emotional awe of Edward's capability. "Yes you did."

Ed's leg was received in much the same way. Ed struggled to allow his nerves to speak to the prosthetic even while wearing the arm. At first with bullheaded strength Ed began confident he could move it and quickly became frustrated. Hohenheim found himself repeating a similar scenario with Ed abandoned on the floor with his good arm and leg secured while he threatened the boy. In the end the leg moved, and by this time Edward could lift four of the five fingers on his hand at will. Just a simple up and down, but Edward found great comfort in this, and collapsed stabbed to both prosthetics with his gaze locked on his twitching fingers. Hohenheim assured Ed it was progress, real and promising progress.

* * *

Hohenheim took firm grasp of the hallway railing and let his weight lean entirely onto the thin bar. The building's narrow back hall ran the length of the bakery and was used for deliveries and sometimes extra crated goods. It was not well traveled and at one time must have necessitated the fine brass railing that also ran its length. Hohenheim had noticed it upon first entering the building because it was out of place. Yet the dim weathering of the polish kept it barely noticeable, and he assumed it was only him, who was used to noting details quickly in his travels, who even paid it any mind.

"This will be a good hallway," Hohenheim said, adding his second hand and pressing his weight down onto the bar to verify its strength. Nothing budged or groaned. The screws which had installed it were holding tight even now. "This is perfect."

Ed sat in the wheelchair at Hohenheim's side watching the man with an expression that made it apparent Ed had no idea what Hohenheim was doing. Dressed warmly in the same brown corduroy pants, and Hohenheim's gray wool sweater Ed was glad to leave the apartment. All Hohenheim had to do was ask.

Since Ed had arrived German interaction was almost non existent. To Hohenheim's knowledge Ed had only been to the alley, his apartment, and Grahams. Graham was also very close, and they had traveled at a time where there was barely any traffic. Germany seemed a risk Ed did not need at this time. He had no social interactions outside of Christopher, and Hohenheim did not feel confident inviting it in. He wanted to play it safe, so he'd start with the building.

Ed was thrilled with the idea of breaking free of the familiar apartment, but became unsettled with the crowded bakery and wanted to return. Ed felt out of place, as if the entire world knew he didn't belong, and Ed didn't seem to know why. Hohenheim did. He knew it was because Ed was hearing the different language, the changed Latin, the German form, and realizing that nothing was the same. The money, the value, the writing, the customs, Ed was an uninvited guest, that was the best way to put it.

"I want to go back upstairs," Ed said, sounding bored. Hohenheim gave the railing a stern yank as if to rip it from the wall. "Are you listening?"

Hohenheim turned his attention to Ed and gave the boy a quick smile. "Not quite yet," he said, skirting Ed's wheelchair and taking hold of both handles. Ed tipped his head back and looked at Hohenheim with confusion,

"Was there a...sentimental moment of your life which this hallway encompassed?" Ed asked sarcastically. Hohenheim pushed Ed to the wall and stopped with Ed's right knee directly in front of it. Ed looked at the wall with disinterest. "If there was, please don't share it." Ed was annoyed with his positioning and Hohenheim could hear it in Ed's voice. He chuckled softly to himself before jerking the handles and rattling the wheelchair's frame.

"Get out."

Ed tipped his head back again. "Excuse me?" Ed gestured to the wall directly in front of him. "What do you mean get out?"

Hohenheim nodded to Ed's questioning motion. "Take hold of the railing and get up." Ed was stunned and quickly looked to the thin brass bar. Ed's hand lifted an inch but then recoiled quickly. Hohenheim saw the rush of hesitation that stiffened Ed's frame. "Ed," Hohenheim said softly. _This wasn't a request. _"Go ahead and take hold of the railing," Hohenheim watched Ed's hand, it was hovering uncertainly, "and get up, before I tip you onto the floor."

Ed turned to Hohenheim with a startled look trying to gauge how much of Hohenheim's statement was a tease, but they had spent years apart. Ed couldn't read Hohenheim's patient smile, and with encouragement, harsh as it may be, looked at the railing with new intrigue.

Hohenheim gave Ed a minute to think about what he'd said before jerking the wheelchair harder than before. Immediately Ed reached out and took hold of the railing. With one good leg and one good arm Ed pulled himself up and managed a wobbly, what looked to be a very temporary, stand directly in front of the wall with the railing anchoring him in place.

"Wow," Ed whispered, struggling to keep his body erect. Ed thrust his hips slightly forward trying to balance out the limp arm hanging off him and threatening to tip too much weight behind him. "This is really heavy."

Hohenheim pulled the wheelchair away and pushed it aside. He understood, better than he thought he'd be able to understand anything about Ed, that Ed needed his mobility. The audacious nature that defined him came of his independence, and his missing limbs, this wheelchair, and the inability to move were suffocating him. Hohenheim felt they would be the nails in Ed's coffin if Ed couldn't overcome them.

Ed startled when Hohenheim took the wheelchair. "Hey! What are you doing!" Ed's top half was already shaking with the strain of holding himself upright. "Put that back!" Ed looked to Hohenheim and this small movement caused him to drop a few inches. Ed's legs buckled at the knees, and much of his weight was held by his rigid flesh arm. The automail appendages were not cooperating, and hung like limp inconveniencing fixtures. Ed struggled to push himself upright with his flesh arm shaking terribly. "I only have one arm!"

"Stand up," Hohenheim said, wagging a finger up and down Ed's frame. "You're knees are buckling and you need to stand up straight to support yourself." Ed was hanging on for dear life. Hohenheim's words felt like a blow to the stomach and he flailed in a moment of embarrassed outrage. _You need to focus Edward. _

"I am standing!" Ed yelled, completely furious.

Hohenheim stepped behind Ed and, gently grasping Ed's hips, lifted him enough to correct his stance. Ed weighed very little. His entire bottom half was nothing to cause Hohenheim even a moments pause in preparation. Hohenheim had the body of a bear in comparison to Ed, and Ed flexed, bent, or entirely relocated with very little physical effort on Hohenheim's part. Healthy Ed would have had the benefit of his mobility, and with the missing limbs, nearly twenty percent more body weight, but without them he was slender, and something that could be looped under Hohenheim's single arm. Hohenheim was able to easily correct Ed's stance, but Ed went stiff.

Hohenheim's hands and assistance were insulting to Ed. A symbol of what he could not do. It made Ed sick. He relied on Hohenheim the way a toddler would, to bring him food, bring him clothes, and even bring him to the washroom.

"Relax Ed," Hohenheim said kindly, feeling Ed's body turn to stone in his hands. "I won't go far."

Ed frantically looked up and down the hallway feeling self conscious someone would see him. He felt like a ridiculous spectacle struggling to stand and clinging to the banister in obvious need.

"We're alone in the hallway Ed, no one really comes back here." Hohenheim could see Ed's anxiety painted across his face. Ed's brow was tight and his eyes had grown narrow with struggle but great with intensity.

"I…" Ed choked. His flesh leg was beginning an ever growing shake that suggested it would collapse in a few minutes if something in weight did not change. "I just want to go back upstairs." Ed's face swelled with a hot blush. He felt so incredibly foolish. He was humiliated with his own appearance.

"I don't think we'll be disturbed Ed. The hall is mostly used for service deliveries."

Ed was panicked with the idea of someone walking in. It was a hallway to both a business and apartment building. _Someone was bound to come! _He thought Hohenheim was grossly exaggerating to paint this in a favorable light, when the truth was; he was clinging to the wall like a cripple!

"I just want to go back upstairs," Ed snapped. "Let's leave."

"You need to stand." Hohenheim overruled Ed gently. He kept his tone neutral and uplifting, and tried to be reasonable. He knew Ed would hear the refusal no matter how he worded it, but he made an effort. "Try and move your leg." Hohenheim gestured to Ed's thighs to encourage the boy. "Like you did before, just as you have before." Ed glanced down at his legs for only the briefest of seconds, and his expression looked frantic. "Think that leg is yours and make it so." Hohenheim stepped closer so he could speak over Ed's shoulder. "Just like with your arm, you need to move it."

Ed was breathing heavily with the strain of supporting his body, and he pressed his face directly into the wall. Hohenheim's presence was like a gun to his head, and every word the man spoke was a bullet. Even though no one else was present, Ed felt as if he were being watched. He was certain from somewhere, that someone, a tenant leaving their apartment or the baker stepping back for supplies, had come and stopped to stare at him. Someone was watching in the distance and laughing at him, a boy his age, who could do little more than a baby.

As these feelings were mounting, Ed was aware of them, and he recognized them as partially his own frustration, and even stupidity, but he couldn't change them. He couldn't change the fact that his inability to stand and do what was being asked of him, made him feel useless, and like a failure.

"Ed?"

"Just give me a second!" Ed snapped angrily. His flesh shoulder was vibrating significantly and his false right hung off him completely limp with the thumb twitching. Ed emptied his lungs into the wall and tried to hike up his shoulders. This movement caused a gentle sway in the false arm and it bumped the brass railing with a dull clank. "Come on," Ed whispered, dragging the arm and hand up a little higher. "Come on." The thin metal palm was dangling at Ed's hip bone, directly in front of the railing. "Come on, grab it," Ed whispered. "Come on dammit, grab the pole. Grab the damn pole."

Hohenheim felt himself stiffen with excited anticipation. Ed was speaking directly into the plaster with his digits twitching and that was proof this was a work in progress. _This was achievable!_

"Keep going Ed," Hohenheim encouraged, running his hand onto Ed's bony shoulder. Ed twitched with surprise and sputtered an uncomfortable sound but Hohenheim ignored it. He rubbed his hand into Ed's stone hard shoulders and Ed grunted with relief before he could stop himself. The muscles about his real limbs were locking up as they tried to support the massive pieces of his body which weren't participating. This was painful, and Hohenheim's fingers held an intimidating strength that pressed into the knots and destroyed them. "Keep your focus on your stimuli," Hohenheim said. He was massaging Ed's Trapezius shoulder muscle. He wanted Ed's sensory receptors to greet the false limbs. He wanted the stumps to connect smoothly, and so he rubbed. He imagined this was much like wearing off the protective wire coating to Edward's nerves. He wanted the live end exposed to the automail, so it would spark. "Are you focusing on your nerves?"

"Yes," Ed snapped. The wall smelled like dry paste and cold soil.

"Don't stop, not for a moment." Ed gave his shoulders an uncomfortable shift. Hohenheim knew Ed felt awkward with the massage, but wasn't asking for it to stop. He was enduring it because it was immensely helpful, and eased the pain in a way Ed wouldn't admit.

"It hurts," Ed whispered, giving another tiny wiggle. He closed his eyes and tried not to think about it the way Hohenheim said, but it was impossible. His muscles weren't just aching; they were turning parts of his body into cement. Tightening upward and outward, like a disease rippling into his frame.

"It hurts your arm?"

"My leg." Ed turned his face to the side and rested his cheek on the wall before groaning a deep throated hum.

It was a sound of experience. It was the exasperated groan of one familiar with witnessing and enduring turmoil and exhaustion again and again. Ed knew this would pass the way it always did, but once again, at the eleventh hour, was wondering why this wasn't easier. _Why hadn't his body become more accepting or talented with having to suffer?_

Hohenheim looked at Ed's feverish expression. Ed's jaw had slipped open a bit when his breathing increased, but now, as if with sleep, it hung slack as if Ed were too tired to hold it up, or too unfocused to realize it was open.

"Where?" Hohenheim asked, looking down at Ed's legs. "Where does it hurt?" He pet his hand down Ed's back, gave Ed's Lumborum a squeeze, and relocated his hand to Ed's severed thigh.

Ed jerked self consciously and with an intensity that implied it was not his leg but something more sensitive or private which was grabbed. His entire body twitched and Ed looked down blushing widely. "Come on old man!" Ed cried out with embarrassment. "Don't rub it for me!"

Hohenheim ignored this. The moment his palm met Ed's rock solid Hamstring in the back of Ed's thigh, he was concerned. Ed's leg was cramping up on him, possibly from the sudden use, or possibly from the change in automail. The port had dissolved and in its absence something had been strapped on and it was different. Hohenheim took the back of Ed's thigh in a tight, but gentle, squeeze and slowly racked his hand up and down.

"We're out in the middle of the hall!" Ed whispered, lowering his voice with shy embarrassment. "I mean—come on, stop." Ed gave his leg a tiny shake, but Hohenheim found the muscle and felt the need to at least loosen it.

"Ed, no one comes this way." Hohenheim rubbed quickly, pressing his fingers into Edward's body as if he were kneading dough. "Is this helping?" Ed felt as if Hohenheim were gripping a dark bruise. It was painful, but the pain was good, however discomfited it was. Outside of Alphonse, no one had touched his body so deliberately, and to have Hohenheim doing so gave the undressing sense of invasion. _Was he not even able to keep his fully clothed muscles private?_

"Okay…" Ed croaked. "Enough."

"Ed, are you familiar with your muscles? Do you know their names?" Hohenheim asked, rubbing diligently. Ed shook his head. "You don't know the names of your muscles?" Hohenheim was surprised. He understood, and constantly with befuddled awe, that humans knew very little about their own bodies despite how much there was to know and how valuable that information was. He had assumed Ed, following his own mental capacity, would have at least educated himself slightly. "Even with the automail surgery?"

"I am not a doctor!" Ed squeaked. He knew some but, barely a handful of real technical names and had limited understanding.

"I am rubbing the back of your Hamstring, and it's very tight."

"I know what my Hamstrings are," Ed snapped angrily.

"I am worried about it so tight. Is it locking up your other muscles?" To Ed it sure as hell felt like it was. "I am worried about your Adductor Magnus and your Gracilis."

Ed snarled. "When did you become so anatomically inclined, are you a doctor over here?" Ed was angry but curious. "What's my Conductor Silis or whatever?" Ed gave his weight an experimental shift. The massage was helping, and cautiously he gave his leg more of his weight.

"It's the muscle on the medial side of your thigh Ed, and…" Hohenheim continued talking, but Ed stopped hearing the man after the word medial. It sent up red flags of dislike, and Ed could hear it drop from Pinako's voice. Something about his automail surgery involved the medial part of his thigh, and whatever it was, he didn't like it.

"Don't touch it," Ed said quickly, interrupting Hohenheim. "Don't touch my Silictus Maximus or whatever, stay away from the medial part of my thigh," Ed said, blushing hotly. Hohenheim's touch reduced pain, but felt assaulting. It made parts of his body tingle and feel vulnerable to exploratory groping in the name of health. Ed wasn't comfortable with this, and perhaps more embarrassing then the actual massage, was the way his body liked it. His breath was straining under its force. It made the entire event sound unnatural to him. Ed found he couldn't stop himself, and he felt like the sound of his own breathing was hideously loud. It was the private sound of a bronchiolar wheeze of physical strain, like he was enjoying it. He was groaning out noises like he wanted this, but that was misleading, this hurt, and his body felt as if it had been trampled.

In a public hall with Hohenheim massaging his groaning body they weren't doing anything incriminating, but Ed still felt like they were, and that they'd be caught. Although the man was his biological father, and was rubbing knots out of the muscles he was causing, like sneezing snot onto your own face, on the off chance it happened, you didn't want others to witness it.

"Okay," Ed begged. "No more."

Hohenheim took his hand away and stepped back. He felt satisfied Ed's thigh muscles had at least loosened, and as soon as he disengaged Ed resumed trying to use his arm. Ed lifted his shoulder higher to adjust the metal hand onto the brass railing.

"The muscle is so tight," Ed said softly. The hand dragged up the railing and flopped onto the top with Ed's guidance. "Stupid thing."

"You're trying to force yourself. Don't try and force your muscles Edward." Hohenheim gave the back of Ed's head a poke. "Use your head." Ed ducked with insult. He shook his head as if to ward off a fly and gave Hohenheim a deep look of disgust. "These prosthetics are going to take mental stimulation, not physical." Hohenheim stepped away and watched Ed's metal hand weakly close onto the railing one finger at a time. Ed was focusing hard. He closed both his eyes and mentally tightened each finger individually. He couldn't handle them all at once, but he understood where his hand was, and this was an improvement.

"You're doing amazing," Hohenheim cheered, unable to hide the excitement in his voice. Watching Ed master this new fake body was as amazing to Hohenheim as watching Ed master his original.

The day Ed took his first few steps Hohenheim had been sitting at the kitchen table. Ed had staggered out four, and the coffee cup Hohenheim held slipped from his fingers and hit the table with a dull thunk. Ed walked just far enough to relocate himself from the edge of the couch to Trisha who was on the other end cutting strawberries. Ed collided into her knees smiling so he could grab a strawberry in each hand. He was oblivious to what he had done, and what it would mean for his life, he only wanted strawberries.

Now with Ed in the hallway struggling to keep his footing Hohenheim felt in many ways to be watching the same event occur again. Ed was fighting to hold his weight in his arms while shifting the prosthetic leg so he could manage stronger footing. This success rippled up Ed's stature. Ed released a fast breath of relief through a sloppy smile. "Ed, you're doing so well," Hohenheim congratulated. Although Ed couldn't seem to stop his body from shaking he wasn't falling, and that was impressive. "As a child, every time you learned something new you wanted to show your mother." Hohenheim was warmed with the memories from just a decade ago which felt like a lifetime ago. Ed was bringing them back as if he'd opened a floodgate when he arrived in Germany. "The first time you made a sand castle, you couldn't have been more than four. You brought it inside in handfuls." Hohenheim laughed. He remembered how Ed's tiny palms couldn't for a moment support the sand and it poured out through his fingers in a fat trail behind him. "She was cooking." Trisha had been toiling over a pie recipe Pinako had given her because Trisha said Pinako made gorgeous pies. Hohenheim had told Trisha that her pies tasted better, but Trisha was not satisfied with the droopy way her piecrusts would sink in while baking. "The funniest part was, no matter how badly you shocked or terrified her, she'd always pretend to be thrilled." Ed had run to Trisha's side while she was rolling dough and lifted his fist while it was still filtering sand through his fingers. The entire castle would not fit in Ed's hand, so he shoveled it in a summer pale he couldn't hold level. He was covered in dirt and painting a beige rug of sand through the house. Trisha had nearly screamed.

Ed didn't see the quick eye widening squeak of alarm Trisha gave when she looked down and saw her son's adorable face streaked with all sorts of Earth. _"Mom! I made a sand castle in the sand!"_ A meager teaspoon was all that was left in Edward's palm by this time, but Trisha bent down and looked at it with a wide smile. "_I can see it_," she said, grabbing a baking rag and rubbing the filth off Ed's cheek as he celebrated. "_I love your sand castle Ed."_

"I wish I could show you the memories I have Edward," Hohenheim said wistfully. He was unaware he was smiling in a nearly vacant hall as if he'd seen a miracle. His mind had taken a sharpened quality to memories over the years, and sometimes remembering was like reliving, and he could smell Trisha's pie and hear Edward's small four year old laughter even now.

"I wish you'd shut up," Ed snapped, casting a cold angry gaze to Hohenheim. Ed was struggling to shimmy himself down the railing, but was managing. The movement of the automail leg caused a dull plop each time Ed moved, and the hand caused a metal upon metal scrap. Handling a lifted step or reaching grab was too much for today, but it seemed Ed could manage a sliding of his limbs.

Hohenheim smiled with Ed's angry vicious tone. It was the sound of the older Edward he remembered the most, and the most assuring thing that Edward was alive.

"Maybe you wouldn't have to show me memories of us all together if you'd stuck around long enough for me to make some."

Hohenheim felt his mouth go dry. Those words stung. "Now more than ever," Hohenheim said softly, trying to stay reasonable. "I suppose you'd understand why." _They were both locked in Europe now._

Ed's metal hand slipped a bit, and Ed's entire body crumbled downward as if he'd collapse. At the last moment Ed saved himself with his flesh leg, as if stopping himself mid trip. "I understand I'd never leave anything I loved!" Ed pushed himself up with trembling arms. He pressed his face back into the wall before turning eyes like daggers toward Hohenheim. "I understand now I'll do anything I can in my power to get back to him." Ed's voice was low and filled with a depth of hate that Hohenheim had not expected. _Did Ed loath him this much? _"That means something doesn't it?" Ed whispered coldly. Ed managed a small shuffle to the side, but he couldn't find peace. His breathing had swelled with the heat of anger pooling in his stomach and his head was turning into a hornet's nest of fury. "Doesn't it!" Ed demanded. "How much could you really love us if you walked out like that!" Ed was trying to move faster. "You left your sick wife. You left a young woman all on her own! _She was my mother!_" Ed's anger was rattling his frame so heavily Hohenheim approached Ed certain he'd fall.

"Ed."

Ed thrust his palm into Hohenheim's chest to ward the man away. "How much could you really give a shit about your own wife," Ed seethed, knees buckling. Hohenheim ignored the hand on his chest and grabbed Ed before he sunk to the floor. "How much could you really give a shit about your own children?" Ed was breaking with exhaustion from his exercise and the anger ripping through him like a monster. "I understand I hate you," Ed whispered, poisoned with a loathing that could never be satisfied with the past as it was. "I hate what you did." Hohenheim felt comatose. He held Ed upward against the wall feeling lost and powerless against the unyielding tidal wave of his son. "What you did to her." _And then there was Trisha._ "What you did to mom."

Hohenheim's grip tightened and he didn't notice. Against Edward's hatred toward him he was an empty useless old man who had made mistakes, but he had never made mistakes by her. _How could he expect a child to understand._ Edward was muddling his own fears of abandonment and despise with Trisha, and Hohenheim felt an anger awaken inside him he had never felt towards his son. It came suddenly, and it was fierce, with a precision that aimed directly at the heart of Ed's argument.

"My absence," Hohenheim said carefully, controlling the anger he felt rising up his throat ready to pounce, "never diluted my affection for her."

Ed had closed his eyes with his own fatigue. After he said what he wanted to say his body had gone a bit limp in seek of rest. Now, with Hohenheim's sudden change in tone, Ed opened his eyes in a slow cautious gaze. He had never heard this tone before, and it sounded like a warning.

Hohenheim's words were stemming from his heart, and the strength and sound of them were coming up from a man over six feet tall and with the solidarity made from hundreds of souls. Hohenheim's mold was poured full to every crevice creating an immovable pillar of a man. His hands were large, his arms strong, and he moved easily with little effort, because he had plenty to spare. With the intensity of his emotion, his words had become a growl, low and dangerous, with unused powerful strength that Edward could hear.

Slowly, Ed opened his eyes entirely, and with the apprehension of someone who awakens to find themselves face to face with a tiger they weren't expecting.

"_Ever," _Hohenheim snapped. "I never wronged her." He stepped angrily from the wall and jerked Ed along. "How dare you imply I did." In all his life he'd never moved his son with such careless excessive force. Ed stiffened with fright when he was yanked up and nearly off his feet. "Your understanding was limited Edward. You should consider how old you were at the time." He dragged Ed to his wheelchair with Ed hanging onto him nervously, and shoved the boy in.

Ed dropped like a rock. He blurted a small nervous exclamation with the fall and impact of the seat before grabbing at the wheelchair to steady himself. Ed was more than rattled. He was learning quickly he had no means of defense or self protection, and looked up with disbelief and new found regard for Hohenheim's size and capability. Somehow it had never occurred to Ed he could cross a line that would be dangerous, and he felt his own naivety as if Hohenheim had slapped him.

Hohenheim ignored Ed's look of arrogant need. He could see how anxious he was making the boy, and for the moment, did not care. He dropped his hands onto either side of Ed's arm rests and, in a powerful grip, jerked the chair forward so Edward was nose to nose with him. "I loved your mother deeper than anything," he whispered. Ed was more than uncomfortable with their proximity. He squirmed backwards, averting his eyes, and lifting both arms to protect himself and shove Hohenheim away. The flesh fisted Hohenheim's lapels and pressed, but the automail never made it high enough to participate. Hohenheim knocked Ed's hands down almost as soon as they rose. "No," Hohenheim snapped. _He had something to say._

"Back up!" Ed cried, sounding scared. "Old…"

Hohenheim took Ed's chin in a vice like grip and Ed silenced immediately. "Pay attention," he ordered, voice unpleased and impatient. Very few times in life had he ever used such a tone with Ed, and most of them were lost in the beginning years of life Edward's memory could not sustain. He was not there long enough for Edward to become willful and disobedient in adolescence, and so there was no need for Edward to ever hear such a tone. Trisha was more than capable of handling the boys with soft but nonnegotiable sentences. _I've had enough Ed._

Hohenheim tipped Ed's face up, and Ed kept his eyes cast downward in submission. Hohenheim was content to wait and it only took Ed a moment to look up. Edward's gaze locked them together as powerfully as if the boy's ears had just turned on. "Edward, I _loved _her," Hohenheim said firmly. "I loved her the same way I love your brother and you, and if you cannot handle that, or if you cannot digest that, than you have only yourself to blame." Hohenheim kept his eyes with Ed's golden color and would not let go. "There are no guidelines to love, no expectations or requirements. I offer what I have, and that is what you get." He released Ed's jaw, and Ed pulled his head back. He shrunk downward in a meek obliging huddle wanting to escape Hohenheim.

"That was enough for her," Hohenheim said softly. Ed was tipping his face forward slowly, and his bangs slid over his forehead like a curtain falling on a stage. "That was enough for her and you need to know that. That she made that decision, and we made that decision. I never lied to her. She knew what I was thinking because I told her so, and she was okay with that thinking." Hohenheim laid his hand in Ed's hair, but Ed kept perfectly still in a state of temporary surrender Hohenheim had never seen. "When you love another one day you'll understand," he said kindly. "Truly loving someone means taking them as they are, and not as you want them to be or have been."

Hohenheim would consider this the first demand he had ever made of his son. It was a command to swallow the truth and not the plea for forgiveness he imagined he might one day beg for. From one man, to the man that Edward was becoming, he was asking for rational evaluation, and two things he knew his son was adept with was reality and truth. "That's all I wanted to say." He stood up and straightened his shirt with a small yank to the bottom. "Now, let's get some lunch."

Hohenheim returned to the back of the wheelchair and they traveled to the apartment. Ed was completely silent and had became a tired bowed figure wanting peace, if but for the moment. Ed wanted to be left alone, and Hohenheim understood his words were harsh on Ed the way one would think what he'd said should not be harsh. Ed would need time to consider and respond.

As much as Hohenheim was not looking for any type of retribution he wanted Ed to at least understand, he had not whisked Trisha into a fantasy land he dropped her from. He was honest and open with her from the beginning, and she was a woman strong enough to handle it. She knew he was leaving and let him without scaring him with tears as he did so. She understood his help, presence, and income would disappear with him, and that left behind would be two small children she would have to answer to, but she did not let this sway her. If for nothing else, he respected her more than anyone he had ever known for being so unnecessarily gracious to him.

For Edward to understand, as the young boy who watched his mother burdened with the heretic lifestyle of an unwed floozy with two sons, that all of their decisions, including that for him to leave, were made jointly, would be difficult. Rather than finding answers to old questions it would only spawn new, and it would be hard for Edward to understand why his mother was okay with allowing their life to change the way it had. It would be hard for Edward, who in his youth still believed in fighting to the death for all forms of love and virtue, to understand why you would ever leave the woman you loved, and why you would ever leave her in such a state. The fact that Hohenheim told Edward he loved him very much, and that his actions spoke of this now, would add to the complex he did not think Ed would be able to see himself out of. For many years Edward had been ignoring the idea this fact could be true, and an equation without love was much easier than those with it.

Edward was a scientist, he was an alchemist, and fact was what he had learned to love and study. As a result Hohenheim knew it would be hard for Ed to deny the factors that suggested he truly loved his family even if he was not always with them. This would directly conflict with the one principle Edward had conjured in order to live: Abandonment and hate before pain, a self denial meant to protect himself from being injured and hurt by his father's absence, and instead allowed Ed to be angered by it.

Edward had decided, somewhere in a five or six year old's mind, that anger was stronger than sorrow, and Ed had propelled himself, and his younger brother, into motion using that hate. Coming here, and being forced to acknowledge the truth of it all, Edward would have to admit his mathematics were incorrect, and so blatantly that even his child self might have known it and more likely simply not wanted to see it. Hohenheim had given Ed a choice, and that choice was acknowledgment, or lack there of, that love still presided, no matter how far from home.

* * *

Lights dim on on Chapter 6, thank you all for reading.

_Special thank you to all those who reviewed last time. *It was greatly appreciated.* I loved reading each and every comment!_ If you are have favorited/followed this story, or myself (thank you), please try and leave a review…even if it's just a breadcrumb : )

Now…

We have crossed some large milestones here. Edward is gaining mobility and the fog between Ed and Hohenheim is changing…what are your thoughts? If you were Edward…if you were Hohenheim…how do you feel? Think of the ice cold fear that would have blossomed if you thought you were graduating from near debilitating dependency with automail, and then came to believe, even for a second, that they were instead to be dull lifeless limbs. …Or stand as Hohenheim, a single groveling man to the orchestra of his son, becoming a furnace upon memory of Trisha.

Rise up. Share it with me. I promise, I have some fun upcoming things I will share with you.

Chapter 7: _Four Point Restraint_ will be up next Friday 2/15/13. I can't wait.


	7. Four Point Restraint

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Seven  
_Four Point Restraint_

- mirage –

Several days later, after Edward was able to accurately use his automail hand to catch an apple tossed to him, Hohenheim took Ed to the market. They were low on food, and Ed was becoming angry the way children made to wait in the car became angry. Every time Hohenheim left the house, Ed began fuming he was left behind.

"I promise," Hohenheim had teased yesterday. "I am not slipping out to grand parties and leaving you here. I am simply going to the post office."It didn't matter how simply he was doing anything, Ed wanted to go outside, and as Hohenheim was finding more and more, he felt compelled to satisfy Ed's wants. So he purchased winter outerwear for the boy and took him to the market.

Light snow was dusting down from the sky in a slow dreamy fashion. All of Germany seemed to be in a snow globe this winter, and most of the buildings were heaped with it. Along the street it was caked down from traffic and soiled from the horses and cars. The temperature was brutal at night, but mid day the sun would peek through and it would reach the upper thirties. In places were the snow was thinnest the sun helped clear it, and Hohenheim pushed the wheelchair the meager two blocks to the outdoor market without much difficulty.

Ed was excited just to exit the building for a true errand he could participate in. Although Ed had seen the road from the window, and spent an afternoon several days ago staring out and watching the people with sinfully cruel and inappropriate commentary, he was now trying to look everywhere at once. "Your architecture here is so different," Ed said. He was bundled tightly in a wool coat, scarf, hat, and mittens. "Your buildings are so low, only three levels."

As they passed shops Ed's head came tipping back in an effort to study each building until the last possible moment. Hohenheim found this amusing, and on the third building laughed.

Ed didn't even notice.

"And there are so many people on foot." Ed was fascinated. The streets were very crowded with the day's mild weather. They were not the only ones taking advantage of it.

Hohenheim leaned down to Ed's ear and spoke while he pushed. "Cars in this world are expensive, and new." Just recently Audi had produced a new model with a 4 cylinder engine, and he heard it could manage the speed of 28 horses. "We're also in a section of town that is a bit more economically declined. It's easier to blend in that way."

"Are we poor?" Ed asked, sounding a bit concerned. Hohenheim broke out laughing.

"This coming from a boy used to eating croissants and sausages." Ed didn't know how to interpret this statement, or Hohenheim's laugher, and frowned. Wearing a tight green hat Ed's blonde bangs were sprouting outward from his face and occasionally catching flakes of snow. "Edward, inflation is striking Germany harshly, and you're eating like a king with times as they are."

"Oh," Ed said miserably, looking out toward the street when a horse drawn carriage pulled up alongside them. It was backed up behind a car approaching the upcoming intersection and the horse shoes against the cobble brought a comforting sound. "How badly are we politically if we have this type of inflation?" Ed asked, reaching out and brushing his fingers against the side of the horse before it trotted off.

"I am afraid things look grim, but don't focus on it."

Ed tipped his face back with a befuddled frown. "Think I am a soldier, do you," Ed teased.

Hohenheim laughed. "You're going to be very interested in much of what Europe has Ed, so I don't want you getting caught up in the pointless toils of this land's men. Mechanics in this would have flourished." Hohenheim lifted his finger and indicated the buildings they were passing on the other side of the street. They were well made brick and stone with large shop windows and trim several feet wide along the top. "You forget, man here cannot work with alchemy." Ed looked at the buildings thoughtfully before batting a speck of snow which landed on his nose. "So each story is made brick by brick with no alchemy engineers."

"Wow," Ed said, turning in his chair to face Hohenheim with a brief smile. "Engineering must be crucial here, how long do engineers study?" In Amestris architectural engineering was considered a dabblers trade. Any structure of consequence was handled with alchemy.

"Years."

"Years?" Ed asked, turning around and looking out at the street with new found respect. "And to think, one mistake could bring it crashing down without alchemy to put it back up." Hohenheim smiled and kept the wheelchair at a stable pace.

"Yes, in a country not too far from here, a beautiful monument is tipping over." Ed turned back around in his chair looking flabbergasted. "It has sunken several feet and is slowly leaning." Ed raised his eyebrows as if to say _'Are you serious?'_ "I saw it a year ago; it's a magnificent bell tower of marble in a country called Italy. It's funny to think how easy alchemy would have corrected something like that."

"Wow," Ed muttered, turning back around. Ed was thoughtfully silent as he imagined a tall marble bell tower slowly leaning over like an uprooting tree. "Are there four seasons here?" Ed asked, looking up at the gray sky and floating bits of snow. "Where are we on the globe? We are still on a globe, right?"

"Yes, and we're about 48 degrees 8 minutes North of the Equator, and 11 degrees 34minutes East of the Meridian Passing."

Ed looked down and Hohenheim saw the boy counting on his fingers. "West of Shing," Ed said, sounding a bit saddened to know an entirely different country had blanketed over Shing the way yet another one here would blanket over Amestris.

"Are you getting cold Ed?" Hohenheim asked. He was worried about the frigid air and wind with Ed unable to do more than sit. Ed shook his head, and perked up when they approached the market. Set on either side of the street the market was a block long and had the commotion of a fair. Amestis had outdoor markets, so Hohenheim knew it was not the event, but the bustle of people that had Edward so excited.

"Wow," Ed said, snorting a laugh to himself as a German couple passed them, him in a fine coat with a walking stick, and her in an elaborate Gainsborough hat. "What's wrong with the European style?" Ed said, hooking a thumb over his shoulder and smiling. Ed's nose was pink from the cold. "They think that looks good?"

Hohenheim laughed and pushed them up to the first stand. It was not crowded because it had fruits and vegetables, and so few could afford fruits and vegetables at this time. "I am sure they'd say the same about Amestris," Hohenheim said, lifting a tomato and examining the red skin. "I always did think the military uniforms looked a bit…presumptuous."

Ed laughed, and in shock Hohenheim turned towards the boy. "I have some people I can't wait to tell that to," Ed said, smiling where he sat puffing soft clouds of breath. "So this is winter then?" Ed asked, pointing upward.

"Yes." Hohenheim bought two tomatoes and pushed them forward.

"How long is it?" Ed began examining his automail hand in his mitten and flexing it slowly.

"A few months. Nothing intolerable," Hohenheim said, looking over the next stand with heavy sacks of nuts and coffee beans. "Do you like coffee Edward?" Hohenheim asked, considering a pound. He hadn't had coffee in a while.

Ed signed heavily. "Yes, but it's not my drink of choice." Hohenheim lifted up a few beans and considered the color. They seemed to be a very bold type and he could smell the potent aroma as if it were already brewed. "Someone once told me it stunts your growth."

Hohenheim dropped the last bean before a memory came to him as forcefully as a seizure. He was home in Resembool, sitting outside with Trisha, holding a small cup in his hand. At his side Ed, no older than four, was tugging on his sleeve and reaching for the cup. With a smile he raised his arm carefully. _Ed, coffee stunts your growth, you don't want it._

Hohenheim turned, a bit startled, and looked at the boy. Ed was smirking at him with the pleased expression of a check-mate and his head resting in his hand. "Edward," Hohenheim said, getting his barring. "Are you trying to be funny?" he asked, with a bit of excitement.

A fat flake of snow drifted down and landed on the tip of Ed's nose. Ed slapped it before looking up briefly. "Yeah," Ed said flatly, before slapping at the top of his hat and dusting the wet snow outward. "I am a funny guy."

Hohenheim was so shocked that for a moment he stood with his hand hovering over the coffee beans before a sense of joy filled him and he dropped his hand onto Ed's head and pushed it playfully to the side.

Ed startled violently, and knocked Hohenheim's hand away with a self-conscious blush, but the action held none of the vicious hate from before. "Okay, okay, don't start getting your rocks off cause I made a joke," Ed snapped, keeping his voice down. Hohenheim couldn't take it, he ordered a half a pound of coffee feeling dazed Ed was in such good spirits, and shocked Ed knew and used an expression that referenced sexual orgasms.

Hohenheim moved them down a few stands. For the most part the German people ignored them, carrying about their business with the rush cold weather brings. The market was heavy with traffic, and the open road was avoided by drivers who were inconvenienced by all the activity. At the sixth stand selling nuts, potato noodles, and dumplings Hohenheim stopped. He had learned the best way to haggle was to go a few stands in and then demand a price or go buy from someone else in sight.

"Doctor Hohenheim!" A young voice called through the crowd. From the bustle of people several stands ahead a waving arm was raised and closing quickly. From the German people came a tall willowy blonde boy with a mop of hair peppered with bits of falling snow. "Doctor Hohenheim, I never expected to meet you out here! You're just the man I wanted to see." The boy ran directly to them and stopped almost close enough to have been a collision.

"Why?" Hohenheim asked, with a kind smile. "Eric I haven't seen you around lately. I though you and Christopher had all but given up on your ridiculous friendship," he teased.

Eric was unbuttoning his coat, and when the top was open he pulled out a book and offered it.

"This just hit the press this morning. It's not going to last very long so I bought you a copy."

Eric was discrete and Hohenheim took the book and carefully tucked it in with the tomatoes. "How kind," he said, dropping a hand onto Eric's shoulder. "Have you had lunch yet?" Eric had done some schooling with Christopher, and with a grin that swept ear to ridiculously big ear, Eric had always been one of Christopher's closest friends.

"No, not yet. I am running errands for my mother, but the price of fruit is frightful. I don't think she gave me enough for all she asked."

Hohenheim indicated Ed who sat quietly watching their exchange with close scrutiny. "Eric, allow me to introduce my son Edward." He stepped back with the introduction to help Ed have the impression of stepping up and Ed extended his hand to Eric's shocked expression.

"N-nice to meet you," Eric stammered, taking Ed's mitten covered hand with an ungloved palm of slender half frozen fingers.

"Pleasures mine," Ed said, giving Eric a smile Hohenheim couldn't place. There was something sarcastic and almost supercilious inside it.

"Won't you join us for lunch?" Hohenheim asked. Eric pulled his gaze from Ed and rubbed at the back of his neck. Hohenheim glanced at Ed to gauge Ed's reaction to the lunch invite, but Ed was sweeping Eric with his eyes slowly with deep consideration.

"Oh, I'd love to but I really can't," Eric said, sounding disappointed. "I have a lot I am supposed to do."

"At least stop by and see Chris then," Hohenheim said warmly. "He's been nagging lately." Eric gave a laugh, and waved to them both before departing. They watched, and Hohenheim was just turning back to the nuts and considering buying a small bag for Ed to snack on when Ed reached up and pinched him with the automail.

"What's the big idea of inviting every schmuck and his brother to lunch?" Ed asked, indicating the direction Eric had left in. "I thought we had inflation and this and that." Ed rolled the same hand in a mocking gesture. "Sure it's okay to go sharing all our food?"

"Eric has been good friends with Christopher for the last year, but I haven't seen him for a few weeks," Hohenheim said. Ed did not see the significance of this statement and snorted with annoyance. "People do not have free speech here Ed, and with the politics rising I worry about him. He's a radical, and although his heart is in the right place, I don't think he knows what he's getting into."

Ed groaned. "Sounds like he should buy a weapon." This was an Amestrian concept if Hohenheim ever heard one. "Or hey, he could join the military, I hear people are doing it these days." Ed's uplifted disposition seemed to have left, and bitter sarcasm was returning. With a heavy sigh Hohenheim abandoned the nuts and the idea of getting Ed up to speed with the ruthless aggression of the German political parties who would not take kindly to weapon owning citizens telling them what for, and moved on.

"Ed, how do you feel about fish?" Hohenheim asked, wheeling them to a stand covered with long dead catch. The wheelchair rolled over half a crab shell and it cracked as if they'd run over a walnut. Ed leaned over the side with immediate interest and grabbed the red shell.

"Are we near the ocean?" Ed asked, sounding excited. Hohenheim was reading the fish prices and only half listening. "Our altitude didn't really suggest we were by the sea, but I've never been to it so I only speak from literature. Can we go see it?" Ed asked, turning to Hohenheim. "Old man, I've always wanted to see the ocean."

"Edward, I gave you our longitude and latitude," Hohenheim said, looking over the cut supply. The fish looked too cold to eat. It was all gray and dry like the weather, and he was unimpressed. "What does that tell you?"

"That you respond to me with insulting riddles." Ed flicked the piece of crab shell at Hohenheim's coat and Hohenheim turned to Ed's sulking expression with a bit of surprise.

"Do you like salmon?"

Ed huffed with irritation his antic was ignored, and a large cloud of breath blew out as if he were exhaling from a cigarette. "I don't really know if I like it, I don't think I've had it."

Hohenheim frowned with a bit of confusion. "Trisha used to make it."

Ed huffed again, but this time it was tight and cruel with a snarl. "Then Idon't_ remember_ it_."_

Hohenheim turned back to the salmon he was visually inspecting and considered how he would cook it. He wasn't that skilled with fish and believed Ed would tell him so if he did a poor job, but the protein and potassium value would be good for the boy. Carefully he pinched the salmon's tail between his fingers and lifted it so it hung above the others with its dead eye staring and its open mouth yawning in a permanent scream.

Seemingly unprovoked, Ed gasped sharply, as if injured, and Hohenheim turned his attention to Ed. "Are you all right?" he asked, curious. Ed was sitting in the wheelchair staring out at the crowd. Ed didn't answer, but this silence was different from his stubborn or disrespectful refusal to answer. It was more appropriate to say he was so incredibly focused he was unaware he was spoken to. "Ed? Are you all right?" Hohenheim asked again. Ed slid to the edge of his wheelchair with his gaze captivated on something in the distance. "What is it?" Hohenheim looked out into the street but he could see nothing of note.

The German people were still passing by, several stand owners were calling out their sales, and farther up in front of a stand with pork a young girl was crying at her mother's side. "Ed, it's unsettling to me when you do not respond," Hohenheim said, trying to ignore the growing inclination to become either worried or annoyed.

Ed pushed up from the chair like an old man, and was suddenly standing on legs as weak as a baby deer. He was looking across the street as if he could see someone, and then called out to them. "Al!" Ed was purposefully loud so he would be heard over the bustle. Hohenheim was shocked. "Al!" Ed took a broken step forward with intent to walk away and Hohenheim felt panic leap up his throat. He went to dash after the boy but a firm hand closed around his wrist and he realized he was taking the salmon with him.

"I apologize," Hohenheim said, dropping the fish.

Ed was holding the top of his stump leg with his flesh hand and limping terribly, but somehow still managing a quick pace.

"Ed, stop!" Hohenheim called, taking after the boy. He shoved at the people who kept onward and cut him off. Ed was picking up speed like a child walking down hill on legs he could not control. "Ed!" It was frightening how much distance Ed was managing to cover, and Hohenheim rudely shoved people aside when Ed neared the edge of the road where the cars took to honking and driving through. Pedestrians did not have the right of way in a Germany with such high inflation and political unrest. "Ed, stop! You're in the road!" he called, before shoving two drunken men aside when they staggered into his path. He feared that with the snow, Ed did not notice the white ground transitioning from the market's sides to the road between the buildings. Like a hiker who wonders onto a frozen pond without recognizing the danger, Ed was crossing the road as if it were a field.

Coming up the street honking was a car which was not slowing. Hohenheim felt the medical equivalent of a heart attack when he looked at the car driving steadily towards Ed and realized he might not make it in time. "_Ed!_" Ed was limping across the road with blind determination. Hohenheim screamed, "_Ed! _You stop _this second!_"

Ed stopped and looked back with something between utter confusion and wild alarm. Ed was speaking quickly, but Hohenheim couldn't hear him over the honking car.

In his memory he saw Ed running toward the top of the stairs with fat baby Alphonse following. Alphonse had been walking for only two weeks, and when Ed reached the stairs he would continue running down them, but Alphonse would not, and would topple after the brother he followed blindly. Hohenheim had realized this would happen seconds before it did, and he had called to the boy, "Ed, stop where you are!" Ed was playing, and when the boy did not obey Hohenheim yelled, "_Edward, you stop this second!" _His voice went booming through the small farm house so powerfully Ed stopped dead in his tracks and broke into tears. Hohenheim rushed to both boys and lifted Alphonse, who was still laughing and playing, to his shoulder. "_Ed, did you not hear me tell you to stop?"_ Hohenheim asked, dropping his hand into Ed's hair. Ed's entire skull fit in his palm and Ed latched onto his leg and hugged him tightly. _ "I didn't hear you!"_ Ed sobbed. "_I didn't hear you!"_

In the road Ed's mouth was moving a mile a minute and Ed was still hobbling backward in the direction he was trying to go as he spoke. In a few more steps Ed would be in the middle of it, and with vehicle travel still developing, the middle is where the cars liked to drive. "No!" Hohenheim called. "You stay right there!" The car was closing in, and Hohenheim broke free of the crowd along the stands and went jogging into the road. The closing distance had Ed's voice growing louder and almost audible.

"Hohenheim! I saw him and I am going…I can come right…with that! Stop yelling and start trying…" Ed was oblivious to the oncoming car the same way Alphonse was oblivious to the hallway ending and the stairs arriving. Hohenheim ran at Ed and reached for the boy. He was closing distance at the same time as the car, and his finger's brushed the front of Ed's coat just as the car whizzed past with its horn screaming at them. It swerved at the last moment as if it were trying to avoid a tree, and that tiny twist of the tire jerked everything but the headlight out of impact range. Round and several inches in diameter, the headlight hit behind Ed's legs like a frying pan. The majority of the collision was against the automail leg, but the force was extreme. It threw Ed forward and directly into a passing shopper.

The German man fell back, his single bag of groceries spilling into the snow with Ed on top of him. "What's the big idea!" the man yelled, grabbing Ed as if Ed were attacking and throwing him to the side. The vicious thrust from the car had Ed coughing painfully, and he fell lifelessly where he was tossed. "You trying to rob me you little hooligan!" the man screamed, gathering his groceries frantically. "Someone get the police!"

Hohenheim dropped to his knees in the snow and gathered Ed's top half in his arms. "Forgive me," he said quickly. He felt hostage to all that was happening. Ed was clutching the front of his chest, and covering his mouth as he choked in continued naivety of the situation. "He wasn't trying to rob you. I assure you it was an accident." The German man looked frightened because crime was on the rise, and children young and all together, or older in their adolescent stage, were robbing for food and money. "Did you loose anything?" Hohenheim asked, trying to calm the man with polite attention. Ed had no German papers, and police involvement would be very bad for them. "Please let me replace what you might have lost for troubling you."

The man looked confused by them, and genuinely regretful he had overreacted. He began stuffing fruits back into his paper bag. "No I…" the man muttered. "It seems a mistake." He wanted nothing to do with them, and climbed out of the snow with his bag and left. Hohenheim watched, with his eyes trained on the man with uncertainty. If this bystander became enraged, or caused a scene, he could still be very much of a threat. They were lucky this did not seem to be the case, and Ed pushed himself up with the man disappearing into the droves of walking people.

Ed was holding his mouth, and still looking across the street. "A…Al….Alphonse," Ed managed, leaning forward as if to stand and continue his journey.

"Ed, get a hold of yourself," Hohenheim whispered fiercely.

Ed's eyes were darting, as if he'd lost sight of whatever he had seen, and this panicked him. "Alphonse!" Ed raised his voice with a bit of alarm, like that of a mother who could no longer see their child. "Al!"

"Ed!" Hohenheim gave Ed a rough shake. It broke Ed's concentration. Ed turned to Hohenheim in low level hysterics.

"I saw him! Alphonse is here! He's on this side too!" Ed pointed across the street and they were starting to attract attention. "Let me go! I have to get to him!" Ed grabbed Hohenheim's lapels with desperation. "Go get him! He doesn't know where we are! He must be looking for me!"

"Ed, stop," Hohenheim ordered. He stood up quickly, in one fluid movement, and took Ed with him. Ed was clinging to the front of Hohenheim's coat in distress, and Hohenheim grabbed Ed's arm and hauled the boy entirely to his feet. "That was not him," he said in a flat tone of certainty. "Alphonse is not here." He took Ed's flesh hand to stop Ed's pointing, and wrapped a strong arm about Ed's torso to keep him still.

Ed was flabbergasted with Hohenheim's response. He was thrown with the conviction in Hohenheim's voice and rejected it. Ed shook his head and looked back across the street working his jaw without any sound. "You're seeing things," Hohenheim said kindly, but this was a mistake.

Ed went up in smoke with insult and rage. "_I know my own brother!_" Ed screamed, slapping his hands down on the arm Hohenheim had about his waist. "Now get your damn hands off me! Let me go!" Ed shoved, and jerked to the side without strength to break free. Although Hohenheim was not moving his grip, this gave the visual of him restraining Ed's movements. Ed was livid with his own powerlessness, and Hohenheim's authority, and became louder. "Now, let me go! LET ME GO!" Hohenheim tightened his grasp when Ed's movements increased. "Freaking let me go, asshole!" He was worried about Ed hurting himself after what just happened. Ed was like a bull stung by a bee. His frenzy was fueled with a surge to reach Alphonse with energy and strength he didn't have.

"Ed, you were just clipped by that car, you need to settle down," Hohenheim said, strengthening his tone with severity, while appealing to Ed's logical side. "Alphonse is not in Germany, you need to stop."

There was nothing left to Ed's logical side. The sight of Alphonse, or the possible sight of Alphonse, was the best thing Ed had seen in days, and the best thing he had seen in Germany. There was nothing that would not be sacrificed. "I want you to let go of me!" Ed yelled.

Unable to break free of Hohenheim's arm, which felt like solid mass, Ed lifted his hand up in an attempt to press it to Hohenheim's face and push the man away. It was the tactic of a playground child trying to fight a bully, and Hohenheim grabbed Ed's hand before it met his cheek.

Shoppers near them were keeping their distance, but for the most part the German people were not yet overly concerned with what was happening. Ed was not being kidnapped, and Hohenheim was doing little more than holding the boy still while he was misbehaving. Distantly, Hohenheim was surprised with how clearly he could feel himself thinking while he hung onto Ed's wiggling body. He was surprised he was not more overrun with emotion or confusion. Instead, he felt he could see the situation as clearly as he could from across the street, and it was not what to do, but what to say which was difficult. Ed had no means to get way from him. Even now, Ed's struggles were becoming the sloppy half hearted attempts of defeated prey. He was capable of putting Ed back in his wheelchair and taking the boy home, but he wanted to convince Ed to agree. Although this wasn't physically required, Hohenheim felt it was on a human level he could not ignore. Ed was not something he owned, and he was not ready to succumb to the last stage of indifference towards Ed's race, and reign over the boy like a god humored with a beautiful insect.

"Hohenheim," Ed seethed, loosing the ability to hold up his head. Ed was panting as if he'd run for miles, and even through his coat he felt hot. "Get your…fucking hands…off…"

Hohenheim felt his pause for Ed's consideration become slight agitation with Ed's heightened profanity. This world was not Amestris, and in the German customs Ed's words were extremely bold. Hohenheim found, with some surprise, that he responded like a German man. He tightened his jaw feeling the urge to snap at Ed when he was interrupted by someone from the crowd running up to them.

Hohenheim startled back from the advance. It was sudden, like an attack, but very quickly, the rushing figure became Graham, and he relaxed. The man was wearing a fine top coat and hat. He hurried to Hohenheim's side with a look of absolutely confusion, and gestured to them with his walking stick. "Hohenheim, what's going on here?" The cane jabbed inquisitively at Ed. "Is he all right? What in heaven's name are you doing on the street like this?" Respectable people did not cause wild scenes in local markets. Hohenheim felt both a rush of relief and anchor to sanity with Graham's arrival. The companionship gave him newfound strength to act on what he knew were sensible decisions. "For a moment I barely recognized you!"

Hohenheim didn't know exactly how to put this all into words, and said, "It's…a little hard to explain."

Ed did not think it was. "Back off me!" Ed demanded, cocking his elbow back with no strength and shoving at Hohenheim with the mere weight of their bodies touching.

Graham looked at this with disagreeing confusion. "Well," Hohenheim said quickly. "It's…"

"It's something all right," Graham said, tone of stark disapproval. "It's quite a spectacle." Graham placed a hand on Hohenheim's shoulder and gestured they leave. "You don't belong like this. Acting as such rift-raft, good heavens, let's get inside. _Yes! _Inside." Graham walked them toward the market stands. Ed tossed his head back with anguishing defeat the minute this happened. Graham seemed to tie up what otherwise was unfinished in seconds, and Hohenheim followed the man. "It's damp out here. You can't have that boy all over the street. What is he even doing out of bed?"

"He was much better earlier," Hohenheim explained. "He's been rapidly improving." He set Ed down as much as possible, but he didn't trust Ed to stand and the boy couldn't. "Ed, I'll hold you up," Hohenheim said, keeping his voice soft and discrete.

Graham went to the empty wheelchair and pointed toward a shop two stands away. "Let's step inside there, shall we!" Graham called, steering the wheelchair that way.

Hohenheim began to follow, but Ed didn't want to. He was still looking across the street and immediately protested moving beyond his spot. "I can't believe you're doing this," Ed said, whining when he was overpowered. Ed limped in no real manner of walking and no longer made coherent sense. For the moment, he was battling invisible demons and could not focus. When Ed struggled or tried to obstruct their walking, Hohenheim lifted him enough to take away his leverage. When Ed lost his ability to manage footing, Hohenheim politely dragged him along. Ed felt like a prisoner, unable to cope and caving toward tormented defeat. "He won't be able to find me," Ed said. "He won't know where I am!"

Graham pushed the wheelchair to a small fancy bakery, and backed himself inside while holding the door. Ed stopped struggling when it was overly apparent his movements were so weak they were useless. He hung in Hohenheim's arms like a doll as he was helped in.

The shop's interior temperature seemed extreme in comparison to the brisk outdoors. Smelling sweet, with hints of chocolates and fruits, the warm atmosphere took them sharply, as if isolating them from the street and what had just happened there.

Graham pushed the wheelchair in and stopped to correct himself. "I haven't the slightest," Graham said angrily. He reached up and fixed his hat which had gone a bit crooked before running a hand down the front of his fine coat to verify he was presentable.

The bakery was small with beautiful cakes and pastries, but also deserted as few has the funds for luxury items. Behind the single glass counter of frosted goods, chocolate dipped treats, and a large Schwarzwalder Kirschtorte, was a young girl looking more than nervous with their arrival. She was the single store attendant. In her youth she looked at the two men who entered, one dragging a boy her age, and the second who shut the door with a bit of a slam, with dread.

Ed didn't notice the slam to the door, his despair was turning to anger, and he lifted his head and glared at Hohenheim. "You just don't want to be alone," he said, lowering his tone to a cold and hateful whisper. "You want me to stay with you forever."

"Ed, that's not true."

Ed began irrationally shaking his head. "Well I am going back!" Ed said loudly. "I got here somehow, he could have done the same! And if he came over here he's looking for me, and I am going back! I could have gotten to him and you stopped me!" Ed began wiggling again, but it was more for show. "Now let me go! Don't try and keep me here! I am freaking leaving!"

Graham slapped his walking stick down on a small table displaying tea cakes, and the loud crack silenced Ed with abrupt surprise.

"You see here son," Graham said angrily. "I haven't the slightest clue what you're going on about, but you're acting terrible." Graham approached Ed with heavy stomps and firm jabs of his cane into the floor. He stopped in front of Hohenheim who held Ed upright and faced them both. "Causing a spectacle like that," Graham said softly. "You should be ashamed of yourself." Graham gave his tongue a disappointed cluck before lifting his cane. The brilliant silver handle had significant weight, with elegant detail, and he stuck it into Ed's face. "Why if you were my son, you'd be feeling the weight of my belt," Graham declared. "And you should be _thankful_ Hohenheim is neglectfully lenient of you."

Ed pulled his face away from the cane with insult. "I am not listening to this!" Ed yelled at Graham before tipping his face up to Hohenheim. "Did you see him? Did you?" Hohenheim felt his energy draining away and sorrow was replacing it. "He was right there! _Right there!_" Ed's body was sick from exertion and shaking in Hohenheim's arms. "I could have caught him!" Even through the wool coat Hohenheim could feel Ed's heart hammering in his ribs like a bird caught in a cage. He imagined that was how Ed felt. _Barred in and captive by this entire world. Panicking wildly in his own mind as if he were clawing at the insides of his skull._ "Why'd you stop me! Why didn't you help me!"

"Edward," Hohenheim said, giving his head a slow shake. "He was not there." There was no other way to put it. Alphonse was not in Germany, and whoever Ed saw, who maybe looked like Alphonse, would not know them. He would be a stranger with the same face. Gently Hohenheim pet his hand down Ed's cheek and it was wet and cold from the snow. "You wish he was there, and so you see him."

Ed spit this idea out like it had a bad taste. "No," Ed whispered, beginning the same restless shake of his head. "He was there that's…_that's impossible!_" Ed cried, tipping his head down and breathing heavily. "That's impossible! It doesn't make any sense!" Hohenheim looked uneasily at the girl behind the counter and Graham followed his gaze. She was standing with wide eyes holding her hands to her chest.

"Rest easy young lady," Graham said kindly, giving her a smile. "My friend's son here is simply not in the right state of mind darling. In a moment, we'll be gone and out of your hair." The young girl gave a quick smile of relief, but Ed was furious.

"I am _too in the right state of mind!"_ Ed screamed. "You pompous little ass!"

"Hohenheim!" Graham barked, warning them both of his dwindling patience. Graham stepped back and dropped his single bottle of milk and black medical bag on the table of tea cakes and Berliner. The force was so great a few blueberries rolled out of the frosting and onto the cake's dainty lace doilies. "This boy is out of his head," Graham said angrily. "And I am not listening to him, and you're not listening to him any longer."

Ed was seething, and Hohenheim ran his hand to Ed's chest and rubbed it feeling trapped between the two cultures.

"You preemptory little prick," Ed hissed. "Think you're all high and mighty simply because you're a doctor in this world! A measly little doctor!" The renowned Fullmetal Alchemist inside Ed was ragging. "I make three times what you do in a year, and when I get out of here, I'll laugh at your stupid little world and your pathetic unmanaged inflation! I…"

Ed silenced when Hohenheim slid his hand directly over Ed's mouth. The grip wasn't forceful and couldn't have stopped his speaking, but the action was enough. Ed silenced with shock.

Graham was standing alongside the teacakes with a grave expression of disgust and disapproval.

"Graham," Hohenheim said, with a bit of worry. "He's very sick, and he doesn't know what he's saying. His fever has been relentless." Ed was dripping with a cold sweat from the snow, and his face was flushed to his ears. "You are a close friend," Hohenheim said kindly. "And the only doctor I trust with my son."

Graham snorted with annoyance and lifted a finger in a stern point at Ed. "That boy needs to be strapped Hohenheim, and he needs it bad." Hohenheim felt himself nodding because there was nothing else to do. "As much, he needs to be in bed." Graham's anger was fading and the doctor inside him was still as diligent as ever. "This is _terrible _for him. You took him out into cold dry air, and it's _too soon_." Hohenheim felt himself continue to nod. With Ed moving the prosthetic limbs he felt that was progress that meant Edward could explore, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe he wanted it to be progress that meant Ed could move about on his own. "Now, I've got something I can give him to make it easier on you. Put him right to sleep," Graham said, lowering his voice to a smooth comforting tone and turning for his bag. "And I think we should give him a general antibiotic."

Ed watched Graham open the top of his black bag and lift out a few bottles before selecting the one he wanted. "Forget it!" Ed yelled. Graham ignored this. He set the small bottle aside and took out a slender black box. Inside was a glass syringe, and Ed flinched the moment he saw it. "I said no!" Ed cried.

"A small injection," Graham said, looking to Hohenheim while cleaning the needle's tip. "He needs to sleep and recover, that's what he needs. You can't recover without rest, that is reasonable science."

"You don't have to trouble yourself," Hohenheim said, feeling prisoner to his worry Ed was not yet ready to break into fits of hysteria on snowy days and run in front of cars. He was ready to accept any medicine Graham could offer in hopes it would help Ed, but Ed was very much against it.

"It's no trouble at all," Graham said, holding up a hand to wave this off. "Just open his coat there and we'll get to his skin."

Ed tipped his head back to look up at Hohenheim. "Hohenheim," Ed said, voice low with nervousness. "I don't want anything." Ed's forehead was shimmering with sweat, and he was dead weight in Hohenheim's arms.

"Ed, you can barely support yourself," Hohenheim said, fighting for reason. Ed was exhausting himself, of that he was certain. "I think this is a good idea."

"What?" Ed whispered, eyes widening with shock he was being overruled. "No, no, are you nuts?"

Graham approached filling one of two syringes. "I'll give him the antibiotic first, and then the sedative. It's slow acting. He'll be drowsy all the way home and then sleep easy," Graham said, sounding pleased. "His sleep will be heavy and restful. If he's been feverish, his sleep has most likely been disturbed, and this will help.

Ed panicked with the sound of confidence in Graham's voice. "Hohenheim, listen…" Ed croaked, squirming back into Hohenheim's chest to escape Graham. "I think…think I am fine," Ed said softly.

"You can give these to him here?" Hohenheim asked Graham with a bit of surprise.

"Certainly, why not?" Graham gave a tiny shrug and set the first prepared syringe on the display table of tea cakes. He poked the second into a small fat bottle of clear liquid and began withdrawing it. "Bakeries are just as good as hospitals when a doctor is in them." Graham chuckled. "Now." Graham handed Hohenheim the second prepared syringe and looked to Ed. "All right here son," he said, with a tone of greater patience. "I'll forgive how vulgar your mouth is and you can speak to your father about that later." Graham began unbuttoning Ed's coat, and Ed was shaking with his illness and embarrassment. "It's ever doubtful we'll be disturbed by a customer with marks to place here, but I'll be quick for you," Graham said kindly. "Then I promise, you'll feel much better after a nice nap." Graham spread open Ed's wool coat and began unfastening Ed's pants.

Ed panicked and reached down to bat the man away. "I don't need it!" Ed was barely coordinated enough to slap at Graham's hands. He managed two flighty swipes before gripping his pants defensively and closing his eyes with humiliation. "I am fine! I am fine! I feel better!"

Graham was not impressed. "Hohenheim, he needs to take this," Graham said, with a bit of scolding. "You hold him steady, and I'll do the work."

Hohenheim approved this with a nod. "Ed, please try and understand." He reached down and captured Ed's wrists with a single grip. Ed's arms were so weak he was impressed Ed was still able to move them. "I am more worried about your health then I am your pride." Carefully he tucked Ed's arms up and held them to the boy's chest with Ed puffing breaths like he'd run for miles. Ed's trembling was growing stronger and Hohenheim didn't know what to make of it. With the syringe held carefully between his fingers he pet his hand through Ed's hair.

"Easy there young man," Graham said, unzipping Ed's fly. "I won't take off your under garment, I'll lift it up just enough." Ed had his eyes as tightly closed as he could get them with his body flinching and shaking as his pants were lowered to his knees. "Turn him around and hold him steady Hohenheim."

"I-I don't think I n-need it," Ed croaked, testing the strength of his arms, but they felt locked to his chest and his legs were useless. Physically he was powerless and in his head a high pitched sound was slowly growing louder. "Please, I feel better. I am sorry I lost my temper." He was begging, quietly with shame. He didn't want anyone to hear him, and he didn't want to hear himself. "I…" Ed gapped uselessly. He opened his eyes, and threw his gaze about himself for any means of escape, but there was nothing. He didn't have strength left in himself to stand, never mind argue his way free. "I…" Ed noticed the young girl behind the counter and she was the tipping point. He jerked his legs inward as much as possible and tipped his head down to hide with stomach clenching mortification. "Don't do this to me!" he cried. "Come on! Please, _please, _don't do this to me."

Hohenheim stroked his hand through Ed's hair with immediate concern, but Ed pulled away from the touch. Ed had begun a steady squirming of suffering and Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Graham with confusion. It seemed sudden and unprompted.

"I don't know," Graham said, clueless, before they both remembered the young girl. Together they looked over at her with a bit of guilt. She was not poor to look at, and being so close to Ed's age, he was more than embarrassed with her presence. "Young lady, would you mind giving us just a moment of privacy," Graham asked kindly, waving for Hohenheim to turn Ed around.

She looked just as embarrassed and glanced nervously about the shop. "I…I am not allowed to leave the counter," she said, voice soft and uneasy. She had been suffering since they'd walked in, worried first with their aggressive entrance, and now wishing to leave and being unable to.

"Certainly," Graham said gracefully. "We understand, yes, we understand all too well. I wonder if you might, as you are unable to leave the counter, be able to simply turn round for a moment." The girl's face leapt with relief and she did so while nodding. "Wonderful young lady, and if you could just stay like that, I'll let you know when you can turn back. Then you may pack up three of these cakes here, they do look wonderful." She whispered consent sounding hopeful as Hohenheim turned Ed around in one movement and held the boy to him.

Ed had gone stiff with humiliation and kept his eyes permanently closed. "It's all right Edward," Hohenheim whispered, laying a hand in Ed's hair. Graham lifted Ed's coat and underwear out of the way and stuck the boy with the needle. "They aren't really here," he said sadly. "Not really."

Ed was too degraded to respond, and only moved with the stab of the first injection. Then Ed bared his teeth and his expression collapsed in utter sorrow and despair. The sudden prick woke what little was left, and Hohenheim hugged Ed to him tightly. The strength of his arms caused a bit of breath to press free of Ed's mouth and Hohenheim was certain he heard a barely audible question come free with it."Why are you doing this to me?" Ed's voice was nothing but breath, and his chest hitched, sputtering out a shaky breath before a single tear slid from his closed eye and sat on his cheek. "Why are you doing this to me?"

Graham stepped back and cleaned his supplies before pulling Ed's pants back to his waist. "There, that didn't hurt too badly," Graham said, returning to his black bag as Hohenheim gently set Ed in his wheelchair.

Ed felt lifeless. He slumped back with an absent gaze of saddened disinterested and the single tear resting on his cheek. "I'll let you do him up in front Hohenheim," Graham said, digging some marks from his pocket. "What I should do is give you some sleeping pills for him. So he goes down easier at night." Hohenheim didn't respond to this. He didn't want to forcibly remove Ed's control of his body against his will, and Ed's response to this medication worried him greatly. Ed seemed lost in his grief, with all strength gone, and nothing but a crippling depression of humiliation in its place. "Are you giving him plenty of liquids?" Graham asked, closing up his bag.

Hohenheim corrected Ed's pants and closed his coat tightly. "Of course." He pulled the scarf securely about Ed's neck and tucked it into his coat. "We'll talk about this later Ed, that I promise." He wiped the single tear off Ed's face but Ed didn't move. "Your recovery is what's most important here. Your sleep." He stood up and studied Ed's shrunken body, somehow Ed looked as if he'd reduced three times in size and this scared him.

"Well now young lady!" Graham announced, picking up his milk and gesturing to the table of cakes with his walking stick. "How about three of these tea cakes here, the ones with the little berries."

* * *

"When I get better," Ed said, voice labored and raspy as he lay thick with fever in his bed. "I am going to kick your ass old man."

Hohenheim had taken Ed straight home with Ed practically unconscious for the journey. By the time they arrived Hohenheim struggled to coax Ed from the wheelchair so he could unravel Ed from his winter gear. Ed was nearly dead asleep and no longer made coherent sense. He understood enough to know they were home, and that he wanted to go to bed, but everything else was lost to him. For Hohenheim this made things more difficult. He looped Ed's arm over his neck and walked the boy to his bedroom before sitting Ed on his bed. He left to retrieve a small cloth with Ed slowly leaning to the right, and by the time he returned, Ed had collapsed on his side in the sheets. Ed was so medicated he didn't care what Hohenheim was doing, and Hohenheim helped Ed into a nightgown and left him to sleep. Hours later Ed woke up.

"I…may not look like it now…" Ed said, managing a low disgruntled tone between his panting. "…but I am good…at kicking ass."

Hohenheim smiled warmly. He approached Ed's bed and sat down alongside the boy. Ed was pale and was gripping the sheets tightly with both hands as he suffered. "Are you now," Hohenheim said, stroking a hand into Ed's hair and brushing Ed's bangs aside. His hair was growing damp, and Ed's bangs clung to his sweat drenched forehead like wet grass. "You know Edward, we should probably get your hair cut."

Ed muffled a hateful little laugh and cracked an eye. "I'll break your hand," Ed threatened, closing his eyes and trying to endure the stomach clenching illness inside him. "If you touch it."

"I meant just a trim of course."

"How was I supposed to know what you meant?" Ed snapped, beginning a slow clench and release of his hands before twisting the sheet. It was a repetitive and almost instinctive action of endurance. Ed didn't realize he was doing it, the same way he didn't realize he was swallowing often, or sweating as heavily as he was. Hohenheim considered Ed's illness and stood to fetch something for him to drink. Ed snatched Hohenheim's arm before he could rise. "Where are you going?" Ed asked, nervous he would be left alone. "Are you leaving?"

"Relax," Hohenheim said. He plucked Ed's grip from his arm and placed it on the bed. "I am just getting you some tea." Hohenheim stroked his fingertips over Ed's wet forehead and showed Ed the moisture. "You're sweating badly and you'll dehydrate." Ed looked discouraged and tensed with worry when he saw this. He understood a fever meant he might not be thinking clearly, and so incredibly nauseous, he wasn't going to kid himself and pretend he was.

Hohenheim leaned down and left a soft kiss on Ed's forehead before leaving for the kitchen. Directly after the kiss Ed lifted his flesh hand and wiped dramatically at his forehead. "Don't kiss me!" Ed yelled, dragging his hand down his face with a whine. Yelling made his stomach rock. "My nausea is getting worse. I think I am going to hurl again old man."

"No, Edward," Hohenheim called from the kitchen where he filled a small china tea cup with Fruchttee tea and fixed it sweet the way Ed liked it. "No more vomiting, you need to get your stomach under your control."

Ed scowled with these instructions. _Sound out the word and then speak it. _"You're a rotten old man!" Ed yelled, holding his forehead. "And a horrible father!" Hohenheim returned to Edward's bedroom doorway with the tea cup. Only dim light was coming in from the outdoors, and it cast a faint window pane shadow onto the floor at the base of Ed's bed. Edward's bedroom seemed appropriate in an odd way that surprised Hohenheim. He felt at first he was putting Ed in a closet, but instead, the small and practical room seemed to fit Ed. It was functional, and nothing more. "I saw Alphonse today," Ed continued, raising his voice. "I am _not _stupid!"

"No one has said that you are."

"I know what I saw!" Ed ignored Hohenheim's statement. "I know what I saw," Ed said, twisting the sheet on his stomach before groaning out a sound of painful misery. "Ugh, I am so sick," Ed muttered, wiping at his face again. "I am so sick." Ed cracked an eye when Hohenheim was silent and narrowed his gaze when he found the man lingering in his doorway. "What are you looking at?" Ed demanded. Ed's fever was taking an angry grip on the boy and while Graham's injection had done what Graham said it would, and put Ed to sleep, as soon as Ed woke two hours later, he did so with a sharp cry of pain and then threw up. It was a violent movement with Ed's body coming to in a frantic jerk that caused every piece touched by the moving car and hard cobblestone to flare and throb. Ed's stomach followed. Ed vomited down the front of himself before he even knew what he was doing.

Hohenheim raised the teacup and took a sip where he stood. The tea was too sweet and he paused with objection before swallowing it. His mouth curled down in distaste, and Ed gave a weak pretentious laugh.

Hohenheim considered how the prosthetics were moving but Ed's general condition was still taking its time. This morning's activities were exactly as Graham predicted: _terrible._ The only factor that seemed to indicate Ed would pull through all of this was Ed's bitterly stubborn nature hell bent on recovering in order to spite all of them.

"I honestly though you'd sleep longer than you did," Hohenheim said thoughtfully.

Ed slapped his flesh hand down in anger and turned a cold accusatory glare to Hohenheim. "You let that man stick me in the ass, in the middle of a shop!" Ed yelled, tipping his head back with frustration before collapsing it again. "I hate…"

Hohenheim instinctively took another sip of Ed's tea and quickly remembered that he didn't like it. "I was worried about you." He returned to Ed's side and Ed's eyes were closed resting, but his mouth was curved in a permanent frown. "In hysteria like that, your muscles receive too much oxygen, and the adrenaline gives you strength your body isn't prepared for. You aren't ready to be moving so harshly Edward." Hohenheim lowered the cup to Ed's face, and Ed peeked up.

"So now I am hysterical."

"Try some tea."

"I hate needles."

"You lived." Hohenheim lowered the cup to Ed's lips, but Ed wasn't cooperating. "Edward, in this world medical limitations are equivalently balanced with Amestris. You can expect here what you could expect there, without the alchemy."

"That's great," Ed muttered sarcastically.

"For this reason, you need to reach your full strength before you allow yourself to become so animated."

"I saw him," Ed whispered, lifting his head and taking on an expression of hope. "I saw him, I know I did." Hohenheim set the teacup aside and unbuttoned the top of Ed's nightgown. Ed was starting to look glazed in every sense of the word. "I called to him but he didn't hear me." Hohenheim kept the knowledge it was likely Alphonse was not this Alphonse's name to himself. "He was standing on the street wearing…" Ed silenced, and pressed his head into the pillow with defeat. "I don't remember what he was wearing, okay! But that doesn't mean I didn't see him!" Earlier Hohenheim had brought a bowl of water and a cloth to Ed's bedside and he wet the cloth now and gave it a good squeeze before laying it on Ed's forehead. "I saw his face," Ed whispered, before raising his voice. "His face!"

"Drink," Hohenheim ordered, bringing the teacup back to Ed's lips. Ed swallowed quickly emptying the cup. "This world is a mirror of yours Ed, the other side of the door. Try and envision it as a perfect reflection." Hohenheim set the empty cup aside when Ed finished and lay breathing heavily as he recovered. "How plausible do you think it is there are individuals here who look like those which exist in Amestris? Who exist on the other side of the gate where you come from?" Ed was still catching his breath when his brow began twisting into a wrinkle of confusion.

"What?"

Hohenheim paused, trying to prepare himself for the warning he had to give, for the warning he wished someone was able to give him. He had discovered this the hard way, by chasing her, but Edward would not have to live that pain. He could stop it by educating the boy early on.

"Ed, let me…" Hohenheim silenced when there was a knock at their apartment door. "Excuse me," he said, rising to his feet.

"Wait!" Ed cried, grabbing Hohenheim's arm. "What were you going to say? I want to know!" Ed tugged quickly. "Just tell me fast."

Hohenheim gently removed Ed's hand and gave Ed's head a pat. "I'll come back and bring you more tea," he said, slipping from the room.

He answered his door and two smiling faces were waiting for him on the other side. "Doctor Hohenheim!" Eric cheered, nearly pushing in. "Listen to this! It's amazing!" Eric was hugging papers to his chest with Chris looking much less impressed at his side.

"What is it?" Hohenheim asked, gesturing for them to enter.

"He's all excited about it," Chris said, rolling his eyes as Eric shoveled the old poorly conditioned papers into Hohenheim's arms. "But I am just a glassmaker," Chris said, giving an elaborate shrug.

"Chris refuses to acknowledge how absolutely amazing it is," Eric said, giving Chris a playful shove to the side and poking the papers with excitement. Chris shut the apartment door behind them and wondered towards the kitchen as Hohenheim read over the first few lines of the report.

"Our world is made of many amazing things," Hohenheim said, considering the first words, before lifting his gaze to Eric. "This looks stolen however. A valuable piece of scientific literature." He gave the report a bounce to feel the weight. "Eric, how did you acquire this?"

Eric's excitement drained from his face and the boy became a bit nervous. "I am not supposed to tell."

Hohenheim returned the report. "Perhaps I would have taken this a month ago, but I cannot afford to now." Eric looked disappointed but did not argue. "My priorities have shifted for the time being." He glanced unconsciously toward Ed's bedroom and was surprised to hear Chris's voice floating out from inside. "Eric, are you hungry?" he asked, suddenly very eager to check on Ed. "Excuse me for a moment, and help yourself to my kitchen." He left to Ed's room. Inside Chris was standing at Ed's bedside in conversation with him. Hohenheim could tell by the uneasy, but also curious tone of Christopher's voice his social attempt was forced, and Ed's responses, which were short and curt, were annoyed but also socially needy.

"You're moving it then?" Chris asked, watching Ed flex his false hand. Ed had raised it to show the boy. "That looks odd."

"It's fake," Ed said irritably, laying his hand back in the blankets. "It's going to look odd."

"It just—well, I suppose that's true," Chris muttered, rubbing at the back of his neck before shifting his weight. "I…heard you went out to the city today." Chris opened a new topic but Ed narrowed his eyes with a bit of disgust.

"What did you hear?" Ed asked. Chris again shifted his weight uneasily, and Ed flared with the hesitation. "You won'tsay?" Ed snapped, voice unmistakably a challenge.

"Honestly, I heard you went berserk," Chris said flatly. Chris was irritated with Ed's presumptive nature, and retaliated with an offensive statement to be rude. Ed was asking for it, and more accurately even provoking it, but in his state could not handle it. Christopher's words hit like a bucket of cold water.

"That wasn't how it happened," Ed said, sounding a bit frantic. "I may be physically declined now, but I haven't been mentally impugned. That's the most_ inaccurate_ account of what happened I've_ ever_ heard!"

Chris grunted a soft patronizing sound. He was secretly pleased to have something dirty on Ed since Ed behaved as if his shit didn't stink. Chris rocked on up onto his toes for a moment before settling and speaking plainly. "It's…the only account you've heard Edward."

Hohenheim stepped into the room. The tension broke what he considered acceptable and Ed was struggling to push himself up in his bed. "Get away from me!" Ed yelled. Chris stepped back quickly, surprised by how forcefully Ed responded to his words. Hohenheim approached and Chris startled as if he'd been caught misbehaving. Ed looked to Hohenheim with desperate need. "Get him away from me!" Ed cried. "Get him out!"

"I am sorry. I didn't mean to upset him," Chris said quickly, stepping back from Ed's bed. Hohenheim nodded while gesturing Chris leave. He waited for the boy to do so before quickly sitting down at Ed's side.

Ed was floundering with misery and deluded urgency to change his circumstance when he could not. "Is that what they say?" Ed snapped. "Is that what they think! That I am a retard!" Ed closed his eyes and groped for Hohenheim's hand with his voice shaking. After two blind pats of the bed Ed found it and hent a tight grip.

"Edward, have you stopped to consider who 'they'are?" Hohenheim asked softly. Ed collapsed back into the sheets blinking slowly. "Who has time to waste speculating on our circumstance?" He gave Ed a warm smile. "You're making Christopher mad and he responded to your rude behavior with spite." Ed had nothing to say to this. Hohenheim felt Ed's cheek and retrieved the cloth which had fallen when Ed tried to sit up. Gently he placed it back on Ed's forehead. "Anyone who held a conversation with you would know you are of strong intelligence Edward. Be patient, no one thinks you've lost your mind." Ed relaxed. He closed his eyes with a slow breath but kept a tight grip on Hohenheim's hand. "Your animated states increase your fever and if you don't stop sweating this way you're going to need to be washed again."

Ed twisted his expression with a bit of disgust. "I am not taking another bath today," Ed said, sick with the need for help while bathing and the wet wiping rag he had endured earlier after vomiting on himself.

Hohenheim covered Ed's hand with his second. "Of course," he whispered. "You need to sleep. Please do so."

Ed gave his head a shake which lolled it absently to either side. "I can't," Ed muttered, looking sorry. "My body is so tired but my mind won't relax."

Hohenheim stroked his hand through Ed's hair, combing Ed's bangs backward and fluffing out the roots to cool them. "I will shut the door so the noise does not come in." Ed's face dampened with sadness he was being left out. "You need to recover." Hohenheim placed this as top priority. "Rest, and call me if you need anything." He stood, giving Ed's hand a final squeeze, and left Ed in his bed with the door shut behind him.

* * *

There ends Chapter 7. You have now met Germany.

**Please share your thoughts!** There was quite a bit to happen this chapter. _What did you think of outdoor Germany? How was Ed and Hohenheim's exchange in the market? Can you imagine the thrill of seeing Alphonse on a German street through Ed's eyes? The horror of Hohenheim helping to keep you from him? You also see a bit of Christopher in this chapter, and meet Eric, what did you think of them? Graham is back, how did you like that?_

Chapter seven is really our hi-how-do-you-do Germany. Now that you've met her we'll prepare to dive in. After Chapter Eight, we will begin to turn around the next bend of this story…so I am very excited to get there! (But that doesn't mean you should cop out on leaving reviews for chapter seven! Lol).

_…The box below is lonely without your comments. Please leave one. Your thoughts are valuable…_

On that note - _Special Thanks to all who reviewed chapter 6! You're reviews made me so happy!: Joker Oak, Colliequest, retippdscissor, ai-eleanor, madacat153, 90008BlackConsid, StarfilledSky, sparklybutterfly42, Drifter, miawpyon, kash30032000, awesomenaruto, VeryliTTle39k, and Time To Kill_

Chapter 8: _Aluminum Glass_ will be up Friday 2/22/13. Enjoy your week!


	8. Aluminum Glass

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Eight  
_Aluminum Glass_

- mirage –

Three days later Hohenheim fried eggs for breakfast while thinking about his food budget. He had learned to live modestly, and over the years had accumulated enough to live comfortably and to support his almost constant need for travel. "Hohenheim!" Ed called from his bedroom. "I am dressing myself!" Hohenheim added some pepper to the eggs. "Did you hear me!"

"Would you like me to come help you?" Hohenheim asked, reaching for the salt and grabbing air. Ed was beginning to make himself known in the smallest of ways, and Hohenheim glanced about for the small dispenser wondering where Ed may have carried it.

Ed appeared grinning in the kitchen threshold in his brown corduroy pants and a well presented high collar shirt. "See," Ed said, standing with a crutch. With ongoing effort and practice they had traded the wheelchair for a single crutch, and with it Ed was almost entirely independent. "I did it."

Hohenheim stood at the stove, spatula in hand, and considered Ed. With these last days of rest Ed's color had returned and the automail was becoming more and more apart of his son. Looking at Ed's dressed and standing form Hohenheim felt relieved. Ed's health was improving and he smiled before breaking a laugh.

Ed's grin fell. "What?" Ed asked, self consciously running a hand down his shirt buttons and fly. "What are you laughing at?" Ed demanded. "I did fine!"

Hohenheim turned off the frying pan. "I know," he laughed. "I see that." He gestured to Ed with the spatula. Ed gave him a mean look. "Here I thought you were letting me know to…let you be and give you privacy," he laughed," and you just wanted to show me you could dress yourself." Ed left the doorway and began stomping to the table with the crutch thumping angrily into the floorboards.

"You're a dick," Ed muttered, slowly pulling his chair out.

Hohenheim continued his laughter. He watched Ed lean the crutch into the table and gently lower himself into a chair before he called to the boy, "Edward?" Ed looked up with an expression of mild irritation. "Good job," he teased.

"Shut up!" Ed snapped, slapping his flesh hand onto the table. Hohenheim served the eggs onto two plates and brought them to the table laughing to himself. "Keep laughing Hohenheim," Ed mocked, lifting his automail into sight. "Your design is flawed old man, have I told you that yet?" Hohenheim gave Ed his plate of eggs and sat down across from the boy. "There's water in it somewhere, I can feel it sloshing about."

"From the bath?" Ed nodded. "I'll take a look at it," he said seriously. "Is it against your skin?" On the table he had set a pot of coffee and cups for them both.

"No," Ed said, hacking his eggs into little pieces with his fork. They were sunny side up and the yokes bled furiously. "And it's not coming out which is odd." Ed knocked his bits of egg around with his fork before scooping some up and from here his coordination was faulty. Ed could manage brunt movements and forceful gestures, but he didn't have grace with his prosthetics. Gripping the fork like a stick Ed raised it slowly with his false hand trembling and the egg wobbling as if waiting to explode. It slipped off Ed's fork three inches above the plate, and Ed scooped it up and raised the fork faster. At five inches Ed's trembling hand shook the egg free and Ed lowered his face to his plate and shoveled the egg into his open mouth.

Hohenheim was pouring himself a cup of coffee when Ed leaned his face into the dish as if leaning into a pie. "Ed," Hohenheim said, sitting the coffee pot down. "That's terrible table manners. You can't eat like that."

"I am hungry!" Ed snapped, lifting his head and chewing what he had in his mouth. "With my fork the egg is too slippery to…" Ed trailed off on sight of the silver handle in Hohenheim's cup. Then he dropped his fork and took the spoon. "Lots of people eat eggs with spoons," Ed said, scooping his egg up and leaning down to meet it. Ed drove the spoon into the side of his mouth and then slid it in happily.

"I am glad your aggressive appetitive is returning." Hohenheim watched Ed eat thinking about the wealth of food which Edward had been consuming. Ed still seemed partial to foods he knew from Amestris and so Hohenheim had kept to cooking them. Sausage and onions, mashed potatoes, fried potatoes, simple bakery items, fish. Ed was not a picky eater once he understood what he was eating. Even when he didn't appreciate the taste, Ed simply complained while eating all of what was put in front of him. "Your appetite means you're recovering."

Ed sat back with his cheeks full of food. "You're going to like it when I get a job," Ed said, wiping at his mouth with his flesh hand. "Start paying my own way and stop this freeloading bullshit."

Hohenheim laughed at the concept. _As if his own son could freeload off him._ "You aren't freeloading Ed," Hohenheim said. From the hall he heard Christopher's door open and slam before Christopher began a fast walk down the hallway. "Excuse me," he said, standing to investigate.

"I don't do anything helpful around here." Ed watched Hohenheim travel to the door and look out the peep hole. "Did you read that book what's-his-face brought?" Ed asked. The hall looked empty and Hohenheim cracked the door and looked out. "The paper quality looked very poor. Is it illegal?" Ed asked. The third apartment was being moved into and Hohenheim stepped into the hall with a bit of shock. Adala had sworn she'd never rent it. "It was written in some type of wacko code of language, but I could understand the diagrams well enough," Ed said. He finished chewing with Hohenheim standing in the hall staring at something. "Hohenheim?" Ed did not do well with being ignored, and tossed his fork down angrily. "Old man?"

Hohenheim glanced back at Ed. "The third apartment is being moved into."

Ed rolled his eyes. "Whoop dee doo," Ed said sarcastically.

Outside the third studio apartment Chris had rushed to help a pretty young woman carry a large box up the stairs. She was wearing a long white pinstriped dress and deep green coat. Looking a bit out of place for this section of town was an understatement and Chris was blushing madly as he helped her carry things. Hohenheim found this amusing, and chuckled when she opened the door and Chris nearly tripped over his own feet trying to maneuver inside.

"What's funny?" Ed asked.

"Chris has made a friend."

Ed was disgusted and poured himself a cup of coffee.

Christopher noticed Hohenheim in the hallway as soon as he'd finished moving a large lavender hatbox into the studio. "Hohenheim!"Chris called, jogging over while wiping his hands on his pants. "Adala rented the studio!"

"So I see." Hohenheim opened his door and gestured for Chris to enter. "The woman's very pretty." Left alone their new neighbor was carrying two other hatboxes up the stairs in a slow teetering shuffle. About her shoulders long blonde hair was brushing this way and that. "She's young too." Chris entered the apartment and Hohenheim followed. "When did Adala make the decision to rent?"

"I am not sure," Chris said, looking toward the table with the smell of food. Hohenheim gestured Chris sit and returned to his chair. "They said they'd never do it, but I guess with the price of everything and, well you know," Chris muttered. Hohenheim pulled out a chair for the boy when Chris continued to hesitate, and Chris sat down.

"_Please_," Ed said sarcastically, fanning his hand over the table. "Won't you stop for breakfast?" Chris stiffened with embarrassment and Hohenheim interceded.

"This is my breakfast table," he said, sliding his dish to Christopher. "Everyone I invite must get along." Chris lowered his eyes uncomfortably, but Ed looked to Hohenheim with reluctant obedience.

"So," Ed said, moving on quickly. "What's with the studio?"

Chris dove into the eggs and began eating rapidly. Ed was too nervous to eat with Chris as a spectator and his eggs sat growing cold.

"The building's owner said she'd never rent it," Hohenheim said, lifting his coffee cup. "Their son's a painter?" He looked to Chris for clarification, and Chris raised a finger while chewing. "Craftsman?"

"Sculptor," Chris said, swallowing.

"Sculptor," Hohenheim repeated. Ed twisted his expression into a disapproving frown. "He's in England now, and they've been keeping it as it was for his return. Unfortunately it seems inflation has led them to rent it."

"What's an England?" Ed asked, placing a palm under his chin and lolling his head to the side with casual disinterest. "A school?"

Chris stopped eating and gave Ed a look that was sharp enough Ed realized with immediate embarrassment he should have known what an England was. In this world, England was common knowledge.

Hohenheim cleared his throat loudly. "I would have rented the studio," he said. This was a lie but it returned conversation.

"I originally wanted that place too, but they wouldn't give it to me," Chris said, stabbing an egg with his fork and pointing it at Ed as he spoke. Ed offered a polite smile and looked at his own plate with consideration. _He could try and eat, see if it went well, and if he was doing poorly, simply wait for Chris to leave._ "The light in there is the best. Daylight makes an incredible difference with glass. It's better than any artificial."

Ed carefully slid his spoon under part of an egg and began a delicate lift. "Really?" Ed said. "And why is that?"

Christopher went into explaining it, and the boy talked with his hands and the fork he still held. Hohenheim had heard this story before when he first moved in and Christopher explained much of the magic to glassmaking while helping him. However, for an alchemist to listen to a commoner of Germany explain how to manually make glass, Ed was being unusually patient and receptive. Hohenheim found himself watching his son. Ed could be incredibly social, and seemed to have lit up the same way he did the morning they went to market. Also, there seemed to be something particular about Christopher that made Ed interested. Inside Ed's eyes a warm, incredibly intense, spark seemed to have lit into a small flame.

"Understanding temperature is fundamental," Christopher was saying. "Keeping a steady 1700 degrees Fahrenheit helps keep your glass moving like paste so you can manipulate the design as you need to."

"I've known weapons designers to make blades in a similar way," Ed said, and Christopher's jaw dropped.

"You have not," Chris said with excitement.

"I did. He was a very fine Bladesmith and used a similar metal working technique. He made swords which sold for thousands, and were well known. When you held them the blade and handle were perfect." Ed lifted his flesh hand and drew a straight line in the air with a brief glance upward to symbolize bliss. "He once told me if the temperature wasn't right, he would throw away the entire sword."

Christopher leaned to Ed's side and grabbed Ed's flesh hand with excitement. "You cup your hand like this," Chris said, cradling Ed's hand in his own and shaping it. "If you do it any other way, the temperature actually has the ability to dissipate and the cooler temperature at the rims causes permanent bubbles and cuts the value in half. People don't realize having glass cool the wrong way makes it crack."

Hohenheim took his coffee cup to the sink with happy satisfaction Chris and Ed were finally getting along. Christopher, he understood, had a much hated need to befriend Ed because Ed was so closely related to him, and likewise, he knew his son desired a certain level of acceptance, even if small and acutely eccentric. Ed wanted, just like anyone else, to be included and liked, and Germany wasn't going to change that.

With Ed drawing a mathematical equation in the yoke on his plate, and Christopher watching intently, Hohenheim left the apartment and went to the studio to introduce himself. He knocked on the open door and called in. "Good morning!" Inside a young blonde woman jerked around with a startled gasp before a smile swept her face. She held wadded newsprint and a single china dish. "Forgive me if I surprised you," Hohenheim said kindly. "I am your neighbor, the very next apartment."

"No please," the woman smiled, beckoning him in. "I hope I am not making so much noise I am disturbing you." She extended her hand and her fingers were slender but her grip was tight. "We just started and we've been trying to hurry since a storm is forecast for tonight." About the studio were many sealed and opened boxes, and the young woman was backing into the room as she spoke before calling into the doorway on the right. "Honey!" A young middle-aged man appeared, a bit dusty, but in a nice travel suit looking surprised but friendly. "Darling, this is our neighbor."

Hohenheim extended his hand. "Van Hohenheim."

"Gerald Brichnard," the man said, giving a firm handshake. He smiled and until he did so he wasn't recognizable, and directly afterward, there was something familiar about him. "This is my wife, Elizabeth." The young girl gave a bright smile. "You live in the building?" Brichnard asked.

"Yes, right next door in fact. Please don't hesitate to knock if you need something." Brichnard assured that he would and Hohenheim excused himself. Seeing ghosts of the past were never enjoyable, and with etiquette settled, there was no reason for him linger. After all, his face was meant to be forgotten, and his name he hoped would fade away when he left each place he stopped. He returned to the apartment feeling eager to slip inside and relax when from the hall he heard a sound he had not heard in years and he stopped dead.

All at once his head was filled with a hundred memories of Edward growing up in Resembool: Edward sucking on blocks that were scattered all about the floor, Edward running through the grass carrying his shoes in either hand, Edward sitting in the kitchen highchair slowly turning his dish upside down and watching with joy as everything spilled out, and in every memory, Edward was laughing.

Carefully Hohenheim opened the apartment door just enough to peek inside, and there at his table Ed was laughing.

Eric had arrived and was standing at the tableside towering over Ed and Chris recapping a tale with exaggerated hand motions and the boys were listening intently. Ed's eyes were bright and he was smiling widely. With Eric's punch line Ed closed his eyes and tipped his head back with hard laughter. It was a deeper sound than Hohenheim remembered, but despite the firm masculine depth of Edward's adult voice, the same delighted giggle from years ago was buried in Ed's vocal cords.

Eric's punch line was impressive with a high pitched impersonated female voice, and some idiotic wiggling of his hips. Chris gave the table a smack and slumped back into his chair laughing. All three boys were enjoying themselves, but for Hohenheim, the only voice he heard was Edward's, and he realized that this was the first time he had seen Edward truly laugh since the boy had entered this world.

"Hey!" Eric cheered, waving as Hohenheim stepped in quickly so he wouldn't be noticed lurking in the doorway. "You have new neighbors and they rented Chris's dream place."

Hohenheim returned to his chair. "They're nice," he said, and all three boys looked pleased. "Eric, when is your lease up?"

"I don't know, a month perhaps, but the way I keep falling behind on rent, I won't ever be able to leave." Hohenheim nodded thoughtfully, and glanced to Ed. Ed was watching Eric intently, and Hohenheim was surprised. Ed wasn't just listening to Eric, Ed was studying the boy. It was a look of fascinated appeal, as if Ed had discovered a new element hidden inside the familiar periodic table and wanted to know everything there was about it. This was the element ERIC and Ed had moved from lit up to glowing since Hohenheim had left.

"Well, I better get back to work," Chris said, standing up with a sigh. "If I don't I'll be the one looking for a new place." Chris laughed at his own joke and gave a limp wave. "See you two later." Chris left for the door.

Eric had brought several books and they were scattered about the table. With a wide grin he said, "I am going too," and began collecting them. "I'll see you two later. Ed, it was nice to see you again."

"Yeah," Ed said happily, watching Eric depart. Hohenheim kept himself inconspicuous and gave Eric and Chris a wave. His attention was purely on Ed.

Ed watched the other boys leave with a look that said he was sorry to watch them go, but was happy to do it. Chris and Eric were chatting. At the door Eric dropped a book and had to pick it up and Ed smiled. Hohenheim realized, in the birth of that smile, what made Ed so happy.

"He's cute, isn't he?" Hohenheim asked, as the boys left. Chris shut the door but Eric's voice could still be heard in the hall.

"Yeah," Ed said without thinking. "He's really…" Ed stopped abruptly, as if slapped. In shock, Ed turned to Hohenheim, stricken with uncertain anxiety and skepticism storming fiercely into a guarding suspicion. He went mute. The constitution of his face was stoic, but powerfully, and entirely from his eyes came his caution. As if he felt torn into in a violating way, and was now left naked and defenseless.

Ed dropped his eyes to his empty dish and stared the way someone severely troubled stares. He was trying to get a hold of himself, and trying to hide the fact he was doing it.

Hohenheim remained silent, granting Ed ample time to speak. When it seemed Ed was not going to, he broke the silence. "The woman next door is very pretty as well," he said, "It seems our building is filled with appealing individuals." Casually he collected the used dishes and brought them to the sink before returning to the table. Ed was extremely uncomfortable, and looked to the window. It was obvious to both of them he was wishing he could leave. "Ed," Hohenheim said. "Do you feel able to go downstairs and buy a small loaf of bread?"

Ed did not appear as if he had any intention of engaging in conversation, let alone eye contact, until this question. Then, uprooted with confusion, Ed turned his gaze to Hohenheim looking stumped with the random question, and offered the tiniest of nods.

"Sure." Ed reached for his crutch and carefully climbed to his feet before situating it under his arm.

"Ed."

Ed froze, as if caught red handed when he thought he was going to escape. He looked up uneasily, and his expression was more vulnerable than Hohenheim could bear. Hohenheim found it shocking. Surely if he were right, wouldn't Ed have something to say about this the way Ed had something to say about everything? Where was the bullheaded child convinced he was wronged from an early age? The arrogant teenager? The cocky soldier? The assertive commanding alchemist? Had he found a place that held no weapons? Given Ed's nature, Hohenheim was skeptical such a place could even exist, but he kept this entirely from his face. Although he did not understand it, he felt certain Ed's expression was begging for mercy, and he continued onward. Normality would be an act of kindness at this time, and it seemed normality was what Ed was hoping for.

"This is perhaps the longest period I've ever been in a city," Hohenheim said. "I admit I am starting to feel restless. What are your thoughts on moving?"

Ed stepped back from the table and carefully pushed in his chair. He gave his head a soft shake and Hohenheim understood Ed wasn't answering the question, but the situation. Ed felt muddled with the collision of what they weren't talking about sandwiched between bread shopping and real estate. "Both of us?" Ed asked.

"Of course."

Ed gave another brief nod and began limping toward the door. "Sure." _What loyalty did Ed have to an area of Germany he did not even know to be Germany. _Ed opened the apartment door slowly with his automail hand and stepped out. "Be right back."

Hohenheim did not realize he felt tense, and that somewhere since he'd opened a topic they were avoiding like the elephant in the room, he had stopped fully exhaling. As soon as Ed disappeared he empted his lungs. His suspicion seemed correct, although it was a quickly made and poorly founded suspicion. However, Ed's response to his slight suggestion was far less positive than he would have hoped. Did Amestris have firm views on sexuality? He tried to remember, but cataloging the social standards and guidelines from one city and decade to the next was difficult, and he'd been in Europe for quite some time. Ed was also rather young, so it was likely he may still consider himself undefined, or at the very least, too inexperienced to have strong preferences.

Hohenheim scolded himself for being so curious. In wanting to better know his son, he was eager to learn about anything he could, and now he felt foolish for not acknowledging there were some parts Ed might not want to share.

A soft knock came to the apartment door and Hohenheim broke a smile. He expected Ed to turn the knob and step back in questing, _What the heck kind of bread do you want anyway?_ Ed had never bought bread in Germany, and Ed had no marks with him. _What do you have Alzheimer's old man? Think they'd give it to me for free?_

"Yes," Hohenheim called, more to answer the oncoming questions than to approve entry.

Brichnard opened the door half way and gave a polite but apologetic smile. "I am sorry to intrude," Brichnard said, stepping in. "The water is not working in our studio and unfortunately I've been told it will be a few hours." Brichnard raised the tea kettle in his hand and Hohenheim hospitably went and took it.

"Of course," Hohenheim said kindly. "Please, you're of no bother." He took the kettle to the one on his stove and filled it with the steaming water from his own. He made polite conversation. "Where are you from?"

Brichnard walked in and stopped thoughtfully before the parlor's window with his hands in his pockets surveying the street below. "Further North. We've been traveling almost steadily now," Brichnard said. "Honestly, with the economy in the state it's in, it was easy enough to find a place, but…rather difficult to determine which vacancies were actually suitable to stay within." Brichnard glanced back to Hohenheim and gave another smile. It broke out like a war and fit like a glove, confident and friendly. "We've been looking for someplace to settle." Brichnard was an example of a fine European man. He had a sense of education about him, and stood in a respectable pose comfortable with his placement in the equation of the world. "We've been looking for a good town, with some good people. My hope is that we might avoid some of the building chaos." This intention was noble considering how volatile the chaos was hinting it would be, but more certain to be unlikely. The rising undercurrent Hohenheim could sense suggested it would be a title wave allowing few to escape when it finally hit.

Hohenheim took a few apples from the fruit dish on his counter and wrapped them in a cloth he could spare. Fruit was very expensive now, and Brichnard's wife was young. He wanted her to have the nourishment.

"My brother set off in a similar journey a few years ago," Brichnard said, leaving the window and taking a few steps toward the kitchen while in conversation.

Coming up the hallway in a low methodical thumping Hohenheim could hear Ed's crutch returning. "I feel bad pulling her along with me, but, honestly I am looking to meet up with him and we've lost contact." In some areas the mail was becoming unstable, and Hohenheim assumed it was being screened and pieces were being lost on purpose. A breakdown in communication, and gradual increase in propaganda granted a governing power tremendous control of its people.

Hohenheim returned the tea kettle with Ed managing to work the apartment door and the crutch without too great a struggle.

"Is that so."

"Yes, but so far I've had no luck in finding him," Brichnard said, with a heavy sigh. The man's face was young, and younger still were his eyes. Dark shinning onyx with the ethic and principle that suggested he may not live through what was coming.

Ed entered the apartment slowly, focusing on his movements before stopping entirely when he noticed Brichnard.

"No one has said anything either way, but I am sure many would agree, it is most likely the political unrest slowing things." Brichnard was smart enough to say this tactfully. "So I've found myself in a new place, chasing his shadow."

Hohenheim looked to Ed the way one does to include a newcomer in conversation. Since Ed and Brichnard had not met he meant to now introduce them properly, but Ed's expression took the words from his mouth.

Ed appeared catatonic. His body had moved ramrod straight, and the color had drained from every layer of skin. There was not a state the room could be in that Hohenheim felt Ed's expression was worthy of. Ed's mouth was rigid and tight, as if pain were blooming, but his eyes were mesmerized, as if relief was washing in. The power of his gaze alone took Hohenheim's words and he found himself staring at Ed's eyes. Into the familiar golden color he found in a mirror, unable to recognize the power and flame that had risen up inside them.

Framed in the threshold of the ajar door Ed was a statue, and everything about him was locked on Brichnard.

Brichnard was unaware Ed had entered and continued. "I actually heard he was here," Brichnard said. "In this town." Hohenheim gave a conversational nod. He was watching Ed from the corner of his eye with building concern and a reluctance to act. He did not want to alarm Brichnard and interrupt the man, and he did not want to embarrass Ed if something was wrong. He was struck by the inappropriate complication the situation now possessed, and was sensing the severity of it as powerfully as a gas leak. Ed's return to the room had caused a chemical reaction wafting into the apartment. The air seemed to be growing thicker, the light dimming, and all the while Brichnard had not yet noticed and Hohenheim was waiting, certain, that something was going to catch flame.

"We arrived yesterday and as soon as I am settled, I'll look for him," Brichnard said.

Ed's automail hand was holding a loaf of bread in a long and thin paper bag. On sight of Brichnard it had lost all strength, and sunk forgotten to Ed's side with the bread slipping through Ed's unfeeling grasp. Ed was in a trance, and Hohenheim couldn't handle it. He felt a welling anxiety within him that was severing his concentration. At first available pause, he called to the boy. He felt compelled to stop the reaction's evolution.

"Ed?" Hohenheim took a step to Ed and Brichnard followed Hohenheim's gaze and turned around. He looked to Ed with friendly curiosity and extended his hand, but Ed responded as if Brichnard's gaze came out and slugged him.

Ed choked the sound of air being punched from his lungs before rasping a single word. "You…" Ed dropped the bread to the floor. "How—how did you get here?" Ed asked Brichnard, voice lifting with excitement. "How did you know!" Ed staggered to Brichnard with the impressive speed of one possessed. This frightened Hohenheim because it was the same speed Ed had used in the market. "How did you know!" Ed cried, snatching the front of Brichnard's dress shirt. This act was socially unusual, but Ed made it intimate, and grabbed the man with the intent to bring them closer.

Brichnard flinched with surprise and uncertainty, and Hohenheim could see the man trying to remain still so as not to be rude. Brichnard raised his hands as quickly as polite and gently removed Ed's while answering, "I just…traveled to the city."

Ed didn't realize his hands were relocated. He was captivated with something, and Hohenheim was growing fearfully certain it was Brichnard himself.

Brichnard should not be familiar to them, and yet he was. He had found the man was familiar when he met him earlier, and now with Ed recognizing him as well, Hohenheim felt the cold fear of dread it was not this man he knew, but one from Amestris who looked just like him. He had not had time to explain to Ed how thoroughly this world insisted on copying their own. He had not had time to tell Ed the story about a lost and lonely man who had one day seen his wife walking in the street as alive as he remembered her. Here she was afraid of him, hated him, and wanted nothing to do with him, because in this world she was a different person. She did not know her copy had fallen in love with him, built a home with him, and bore his children. She was frightened by the desperate intensity she could see in his eyes when he spoke to her. She thought he was dangerous, and ran from him.

With Ed's shoulders in his hands Hohenheim felt a tidal wave of guilt he'd ever procrastinated with something so important. He knew the likelihood of Ed encountering a copy somewhere was inevitable, and yet he had delayed explaining the concept because he found it horrifying to the point of nausea, that somewhere in this world there was a copy Alphonse. The idea Ed might run into a brother who did not know him, while the separation was so hard on Ed, was too terrible to bear. He pushed it from his mind, and in fighting the concept, had fought the idea he needed to tell Ed what Ed needed to protect himself. He wanted Ed to have time to recover before forcing another blow upon him, and he had hoped this world would give him that small mercy. Instead, here was Brichnard, someone Ed obviously knew, standing in his kitchen getting water for his tea kettle.

Brichnard was trying to return Ed's hands to him, but Ed turned the movement into a desperate clutch of Brichnard's hands. "I—You have no idea what I've been through!" Ed sounded crazed with relief filled job, and clung to Brichnard like a starving peasant to a god. "I—I thought I'd be lost here," Ed confessed, fighting the crippling expression of despair and panic which streamed across his face. Ed seemed as if he were drowning in his emotions, and his grip on Brichnard's was beginning to shake. "I didn't think you'd find me." Ed stepped as close to Brichnard as possible without pressing them together. "Thank god." Ed hent Brichnard's arm, and Brichnard's entire frame bristled with offense. Something about Ed's touch and tone was turning affectionate, and the man was responding instead as if someone had thrown a pail of cold water in his face and he wanted to escape. He looked quickly to Hohenheim, and Hohenheim felt himself awake, as if from a numbing overpowering spell, and he went to Ed's side.

Since Ed had returned Hohenheim had not been able to understand what Ed was thinking or doing. Ed was a stranger, and the intensity of need he could see winding Ed's frame was so powerful, Hohenheim felt himself freeze up. He saw the boy move toward Brichnard, in a way that was unnatural and begged for him to intervene, but instead he watched, staring, like a spectator watches a car crash: jaw agape, and mind blank.

Hohenheim took Ed's shoulders in a soft, but commanding grip, and moved Ed back a step. He was about to speak. The words "excuse me" came up his throat, but he found that he couldn't. That some part of him, an old and familiar part, was not following the logical process of the equation. His mouth felt dust-filled and cob-webbed and for a moment he felt a sensation he had not felt in tens, if not hundreds of years: _he did not know what to say._

Brichnard seemed in the same state of mind, but currently human, responded faster, with a quick etiquette driven, "I apologize." The man offered a quick clueless shrug, looking befuddled and almost blindsided by Ed's attack.

Ed staggered back with Hohenheim's pull, but didn't notice it. Hohenheim's grip, and presence did nothing to separate the gaze Ed had locked on Brichnard. His world had opened suddenly. Swinging back the door on his coffin and spilling him back into the fresh air and wet grass surrounding his grave when he believed his life would forever be, and end, in that box. Overjoyed Ed dug his fingers into the Earth and grass and whispered, "I missed you so much." His voice was almost failing him. "I knew I'd see you again…" _He hadn't known this. He hadn't believed this. He didn't have the strength to even attempt to fool himself. _"I knew I'd see you again, but dammit, you sure took your time you pompous asshole." Ed felt his eyes rush with tears, and he blinked once, firmly, and demanded they leave. _He wasn't going to be the Amestrian in Germany that started bawling._ "Roy, I want to cross back to Amestris." _Roy wasn't crying._

Hohenheim heard the word Amestris drop like a bomb, and he yanked Ed from Brichnard on impulse. Ed went stiff with surprise. Suddenly he was relocated to Hohenheim's side, facing away from Brichnard and he smacked Hohenheim off him with outrage. "Hohenheim, relax!" Ed snapped, glaring at Hohenheim with insult as he reached blindly back to Brichnard.

Brichnard saw Ed's hand coming for his arm, and politely stepped aside before it could find purchase. He took Ed's hand and gently returned it to Ed, and shamed them both by finding the ability to speak clearly and appropriately. "I think you are confused," Brichnard said quickly. He lowered his voice into a delicate tone as if speaking to a cranky child. "I don't have plans to go to Amestris." Brichnard sounded slightly unsure with what Amestris was, but assumed it was part of the local color.

Ed yanked his hand out of Brichnard's clutch with a loud, "What!" Ed looked slapped. "What the hell are you talking about?" Ed reached up and touched his temple in a fleeting gesture of panic and stress. "Not cross back! Are you out of your freaking mind? Why would we stay!"

Brichnard was unprepared for Ed's raising voice and indicated the door with a kind nod of his head. "I think I'd had better…" Brichnard trailed off to be polite and Hohenheim nodded.

"Yes, that would be a good idea," Hohenheim said quickly, gesturing Brichnard leave.

"What!" Ed screamed, snatching Brichnard's arm with a look of horror. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ed said, flying quickly into a tornado as his fear met his anger born of fear. "You want to explain this to me?" Brichnard looked at Ed with mild concern, as if Ed were a small yipping dog which had bitten onto his pant leg. He didn't find Ed harmful, but he certainly looked as if he found Ed disturbing. "You're here now, you see what this place is like! Roy, why would we stay! We can't even do any alchemy here! You're suggesting we stay in this hell hole!"

There was a small knock on the open door and Brichnard's young wife Elizabeth stepped in wearing a bright smile. "I am sorry to interrupt," she said sweetly, looking to Brichnard. "But darling you were taking so long."

Ed's jaw hit the floor.

Elizabeth walked to Brichnard and slipped her arm into his before giving Ed a happy smile of acknowledgement since they had not met.

Ed was furious.

"Who the hell is this!" Ed demanded, slapping her arm off Brichnard. Elizabeth squeaked with surprise and clutched Brichnard for safety. She looked frightened, but also confused in a painfully naive way, as if Ed meant his blow to be personal. _She was astute._ Even Hohenheim could see the blow was meant to be personal and Brichnard responded curtly. The man had otherwise been tolerant, but as if awaking suddenly, he stepped in front of his wife in one quick and powerful step. His expression was tense with anger, and he fixed a dark warning glare on Ed.

"We had better go," Brichnard said to Hohenheim, without severing his gaze with Ed.

"Go!" Ed yelled, horror-struck. "You can't be serious! Who the hell is this!" Ed threw an accusatory hand into the young girl's face. "Some little skank you just picked up! Do you think this is funny?" Ed was furious, and took a fast step forward. Hohenheim looped his arm about Ed's shoulders and over Ed's chest to stop him. "You think I can't kick your ass without alchemy! You think I would hesitate one second! Just you wait you two-timing bastard!" Ed's eyes rushed with tears, and he was jerking to advance like a horse reigned to a carriage that wouldn't budge. "You seriously want to stay here! In this Germany place! How can you have nothing to say for yourself!" Ed was all over the place. "You have the balls to stand here silent! You—You're not even going to try and explain this to me!"

Hohenheim took a step to the side, turning Ed with him so Ed would no longer facing their guests. "I am terribly sorry," he said, keeping Ed anchored in place while Ed struggled. "He is perfectly harmless, but he hasn't been well."

Brichnard had begun ushering his wife toward the door with Ed yelling, but he paused after handing her the tea kettle. He wanted his wife protected from this environment, but he felt concerned for their hospitable neighbor. "I am sorry, I didn't mean to upset him, I would not have come if I had known."

Elizabeth went to the door looking frightened, but lingered.

"You wouldn't have come!" Ed screamed, violently trying to break free of Hohenheim's grasp. "You wouldn't have—I am going to rip you apart!" Hohenheim's strength to Ed was a mother to her squirming toddler. Hohenheim kept his arms securely locked in place and they were a harness on Ed's body. "Can't you even look at me! Are you that ashamed of yourself!" Ed cried. "Is this what you do when you find out your glove won't work, you selfish dick!"

Elizabeth gave a small cry and tried to cover her ears.

"Elizabeth, go back to our apartment," Brichnard said, turning to her. His tone was nothing to sneeze at, and he looked very concerned with Ed's negative behavior toward her.

"Go back to _our_ apartment!" Ed's eyes bulged as if they would pop out. These words hit like a bullet and all at once the fight left him. His body became a corpse. "Roy, you can't be serious!" He was terrified.

Elizabeth was hesitating and with Brichnard ordering her to go Hohenheim leaned down to Ed's ear and whispered fiercely to him. "Ed, you need to stop this." Ed breathing was growing swift. "You're not understanding the situation." Hohenheim loosened his grip. He felt bad physically restraining Ed, and didn't want to continue. He took Ed's sudden halt as a good sign, and hoped Ed was becoming civilized again. "I will explain this to you Ed, but you must control yourself. Son, I am going to let you go, but you need to stand still. Things are not as you think they are."

Hohenheim released Ed slowly, and Ed was motionless. He was so still the contrast from sudden bar-fight swinging had Hohenheim worried Ed had even stopped breathing, and it was not with obedience, or obligation that Ed ceased, it was due to something more accurately described as a black out. A power outage, a shut down, a collapse of everything but one single repeating recording: _I don't have plans to go to Amestris_.

Nothing else existed. For a moment Ed's world shut down systematically. Light, sound, thought, existence. It went black and into nothing, into the coffin, and his body followed suit. However impossible it seemed that Roy had managed to cross through the gate, and whatever he had done to do so, Roy found unimportant. He liked Germany and wanted to stay, wanted to build a new life with this random girl, and forget all about what they had and everything happening in their own.

Slowly Ed turned his gaze to where Roy was standing, talking to the girl in their doorway, and sensory perception began returning. His body responded first, with his breath growing faster and faster, and his mind followed next becoming spastic.

In slow motion he watched Gerald Brichnard, Roy Mustang to Amestris, step back from them, the respectable neighbor and his ill son, and begin to leave. The shift of Roy's body, the few words he was still speaking, and his footfalls were lost on Ed. His hearing was coming back slow and what little there was to the world sounded as if it were under water. The whoosh of air Ed sucked into his lungs brought a cold dryness over his mouth but the act was mute. He was deaf until he filled his lungs to capacity and screamed.

"Roy!"

Brichnard startled badly, and stumbled round to face Ed with alarm.

"Don't leave me here! This isn't funny!" Ed broke into a run to chase, or follow, or throw himself at Roy's feet and beg, he didn't care at this point. Just so long as he wasn't abandoned, truly abandoned, like a worthless after thought. Tears sprang to his eyes and fell to his cheeks but he was oblivious to them. His body was nothing to him, Roy was all there was, and he was leaving! "Roy, please!" Ed cried, his head felt like a wild hornet's nest of sound and disaster. "This isn't my home! I can't stay here! We need to leave!"

When Ed began to run he made it only two steps. Hohenheim caught Ed's arm and jerked Ed back into his chest. This had the effective of shackling Ed to a wall, and Ed became hysterical. "Roy please! You can't do this to me! Not like this! Why would you do this! I swear, if you're mad at me, I apologize! Freaking don't leave me, please!"

Brichnard left quickly, and paused briefly in the doorway. He felt more sympathetic now that his wife was separated from such an inappropriate scene. Hohenheim had been gracious and charismatic, and seemed undeserving of such a handicapped child. "Would you like me to call someone?" Brichnard asked. He could do this much. He felt partially responsible. He had upset the boy, agitated his condition somehow.

"No," Hohenheim said, waving frantically for the man to leave. "I can manage, please just shut the door behind you."

"NO!" Ed screamed. "Hohenheim, let me go! You have to be on my side with this! ROY! Please!" Ed was fighting with everything he had. Every system felt like it was on fire, and he wasn't aware of when his head started pounding, his vision became blurry, or when his heart began to feel like someone was hammering a nail into his chest. Everything which was rotten now was promised to get better with escape. Back in Amestris, back with Alphonse, back with _him_.

"Are you sure?" Brichnard asked, taking hold of the door handle and looking worried. "His mother perhaps?" Hohenheim was nearly doubled over in an attempt to hang onto the flailing boy. "You're quite sure?"

"Yes!" Hohenheim cried. _Yes, please end it. Please end it! _"It will be fine! Just shut the door!"

"ROY!" Ed screamed, wiggling an arm free and reaching for Brichnard. "_Please-please-please! Please-please-please!"_ Ed babbled. "Hohenheim, let me go!" Ed screamed. "ROY!"

Brichnard stepped out and shut the door with relief, and for a second, which lasted no longer than Ed's abrupt and overpowering gasp of an inhale, Ed silenced and went stiff. His heart was beating at the rate of a vibrating hum and his vision was growing distorted. The light in the room was becoming overpowering, and everything else was growing blurry. There was nothing but noise inside him, blaring over everything, and he had to follow.

Ed tipped his head forward, closed his eyes, and screamed Roy's name.

Hohenheim felt his arms lock down around Ed in fright. As if there were something else in the room he had to protect the boy from, and that's how he felt. Like the gate had opened its mouth and let Ed's torn and mutilated body drip out into Germany deliberately. With all of Europe this was where it dropped the boy, and so why shouldn't he have assumed, even as a worse case scenario, that here in Munich there would be copies. That there wouldn't just be some, that there would be most, or perhaps all. That the gate would have spit Ed into the worse place it could think of on purpose. It knew where Edward was, at least in the distant reasonable suspect way as it had not felt him do anything of note anywhere else. So why didn't he assume that here in Munich might be the most terrible copy, might be Alphonse himself. Why hadn't he taken Ed and fled. Why hadn't he sat Ed down, sick or not, and told the boy what he needed to know! Had he become so human? Had Ed turned him into the weary uncertain man from the farmhouse in little less than a fortnight!

When Brichnard left the room as fast as socially acceptable Ed tipped his head forward and screamed the way Hohenheim imagined Ed might have screamed when the arm Ed had worn for eleven years of his life decided it wanted to tear itself off and break free.

"I'll kill him!" Ed screamed, voice overrun with sorrow and devastation. There was no anger; there was only self wallowing despair. "Roy!" Hohenheim had never heard a human cry after another with such passion. "Roy! Let me go Hohenheim! I'll kill him! Kill that two-timing, back-stabbing, skirt-chasing, kill him!" Ed was shaking so hard his body seemed more accurately to be twitching. All fine motor control was gone, and Ed had his palms flat and his fingers outstretched and nearly waving, as if in a seizure he was on some level trying to control.

Hohenheim dropped to his knees, and sat back, folding Edward with him. With deep love, and now pain, he laid his hand on top of Ed's head and whispered to him. He was surprised Ed had not thrown up, and scared Ed would not be able to control his breathing.

"Ed, listen carefully to what I am saying to you."

Ed broke into heart wrenching sobs. Hohenheim closed his eyes in pity, and held Ed tighter. In a one arm embrace, he cradled Ed's limp body with care. Ed was suffering over something he didn't understand. It was powerful, and it was flowing like a disease into every piece of Ed and destroying him.

"Ed," Hohenheim said softly. "I think you're having a panic attack, you need to focus on where you are, and relax."

"He deserted me!" Ed sobbed, choking out the word in syllables: _He-De-Ser-Ted-Me. _Ed let his body tip forward under its own weight until his head hung toward the floor as if only on the thread of his neck. "He deserted me for a woman!"

"Ed." Hohenheim gave Ed a demanding shake. "Whoever you thought that man to be, he is not, do you understand? He is not who you think he is." Ed was hysterical in a way Hohenheim had never seen. It was more than a loss of logic, it was an entire detachment of self, as if Ed had pulled the plug on Germany all together, and disappeared from the body in his arms. He believed, from what little he could remember of human life, and from what he knew chemically of humans, that this was grief, as sure as he'd ever seen it lived. Ed was grieving, and it was different from the out and out balling that had taken Ed as fiercely as a cancer when he learned home was a place he would never see again. This was quite, self-loathing sniveling meant for one. Ed was sobbing, and it was rather loud, but it was intimate, it was private, and it was the passion inside Ed's sorrow that made it so. Hohenheim felt as if he were invading even as he found himself yet again forced into a situation in which he could not leave Ed to his own mind.

"Ed, do you understand that?" Hohenheim asked. He sought reason with desperation. From the logical perspective Ed was crying over a misunderstanding. Whatever Ed thought happened, had not happened, and he wanted Ed to understand that. _He wanted to stop Ed's tears._

"He deserted me," Ed sobbed again.

Hohenheim felt defeated. He sat back and released his grip on Ed. Immediately Ed crumpled downward as if preying. On his knees Ed rested his forehead to the floor and wrapped his arms over his head crying.

"Ed, who was that man?"

"God is punishing me," Ed cried, voice lifting in pitch until it sounded like a shrill thirteen year old. _"He's punishing me for everything I've done and what I thought I could do!"_ Hohenheim shook his head in disagreement. He did not believe this was so. "For being so arrogant I thought—I thought—I thought I was a god!" Ed sobbed. "He said…he said I would be the only one." Ed's crying sounded like bronchitis wheezing. "He said I'd be the only one, and that he'd fight for us!"

"Who was he?"

Ed had curled into a tiny ball, and even though it disturbed Hohenheim to see Ed this way, there was something about Ed's position that was peaceful. It was strangely appropriate, and Hohenheim sat at Ed's side and stroked his hand lazily form the crown of Ed's head to the tip of his braid.

"That selfish—selfish—selfish fucking—I'll—fucking ass—fucking asshole," Ed sobbed. "In two—in two—two seconds…when I get this together…" Ed sniffled, clearing his sinuses and swallowing. "In two seconds…" He couldn't stop his crying long enough to speak, but he was beginning to sound angrily. Ed pulled his hands from his hair where they were clutching his roots and brought them down on either side of his head curled into fists. "In two seconds when—when I get this together I going to go—I am going to—I am going to kick—beat the _shit_ out of him!"

"He looked familiar to me," Hohenheim said thoughtfully. His hand was petting slowly from crown to braid, crown to braid. "But I can't recall the name."

Ed laughed: a sobbing bitter and hateful cackle toward the floorboards. "His name…" Ed sounded sick with sad hate. "Mustang," Ed whispered. "_Colonel Roy Mustang._" Ed pronounced each word independently of the other as if each were its own existence. There was the Colonel, and then_ Roy_, and finally _Mustang_. As if the man were made up of three parts, the part belonging to and crafted for the military, the intimate inner self, and the formal social self. "That's who he was," Ed said, sniffling excessively. "That's who." Ed lifted his head, petting his face frantically as if trying to dust it clean, before turning to Hohenheim. "You have to help me get to him." Hohenheim was more than a little surprised with this request. Ed understood this, with his eyes swollen into pink boils on his face, he saw Hohenheim's look of perplexed concern. "I can change his mind," he said quickly. "I—we can't stay in—Germany—whatever he sees in her it's—I can…we can—"

"Ed." Hohenheim snapped Ed's name coldly, sounding angry. "That's not Colonel Mustang." Ed silenced and his expression was too fatigued to be anything but painful. There was no strength for anything else. The only act which seemed fitting for Ed's expression was disembowelment. Although physically unharmed, Ed looked as if he'd been slit down the middle opening his organs, chest, and beating heart. "I want you to pay attention to what I am saying." Hohenheim reached forward and pet Ed's bangs back firmly, deliberately using strength he knew would tip Ed's head further from him to strengthen their gaze. "This world is a mirror of our world Ed. That was not Colonel Mustang."

Ed's face twisted into a snarl. "Mirror my ass." Ed's flesh hand singled out a weak finger and pointed toward the door. "Help me…get to him please. I just want to talk to him…a little bit."

"Ed, you'll never know anyone better than you'll know your own wife." Ed's eyes widened with fear Hohenheim wasn't taking him seriously. That when he needed to get up and chase after Roy before Roy wondered out into a world he could not navigate, Hohenheim was going to slip into some reminiscent fantasy. "You know your wife inside and out, there is no mistaking it, and I knew your mother this way."

Ed curled his hand into a fist and suddenly let loose a floodgate of tears. "I'll hit you! If you start talking about mom right now, I'll fucking hit you," Ed sobbed. "Aren't you even listening to me? For fuck-sake Hohenheim!"

Hohenheim planted a hand alongside Ed's shoulder and lowered himself directly into Ed's face. He moved fluidly, so it was a quick and almost pouncing motion. Ed receded with a look of nervous anxiety and wiped at his running nose.

"You're still not paying attention," Hohenheim scolded softly. "Now Edward, stop what you are doing, and be studious. I need to teach this to you, and you have to receive it." Ed didn't know what to make of these words. He stared at Hohenheim, who was nearly nose to nose with him, and felt assaulted by the man. Hohenheim was the size of a bear, and seemed to always think that what he had to say was the most important. The maddening thing was, this seemed to be true, and Ed felt desperate to chase after Roy, but incapacitated with Hohenheim as a roadblock.

"I _am _listening," Ed whined. "But…I need to…"

Hohenheim shook his head and Ed silenced. "Do you think you might confuse someone you live with for so long? Someone who bore your children and who you spent hundreds of days waking up and falling asleep with?" Hohenheim remembered Trisha in a way he could not explain to Ed. In a way Edward would never understand his mother, and this was as the individual she was before Edward was born. As the young girl who used to pick wild flowers whenever she walked, and who always thought her thighs looked fat in every dress. Trisha was her own person, and before she had carried another life inside her womb had an entire chest of dreams, hopes, and fears she shared with him. Together they decided on things they would do and as one unit they built a house and made a home. He nailed the wood and she would paint until her arms had vicious cramps. They learned to do the plumbing and she insisted on helping even though she could barely manage any tool requiring upper body strength. He cut tile, she framed windows, and they picked out a bedroom for themselves and fantasized over the empty one and how they would fill it. Before she was married, before she was pregnant, before she was a mother, she was an entirely different existence that only Hohenheim knew, and he was in love with her, madly in love with her.

"I would follow her as she walked," Hohenheim whispered. "I would stand as close as I thought I could without her noticing so I could hear her speak. I worshiped the ground she stood on, and once she left a glove behind on a café table and I took it the way a starving man takes a moldy piece of bread…like it's gold Edward." Hohenheim sharpened the gaze he had locked with Ed's. "…Like it's _gold_. In this apartment, and in dozens like it, I was you, laying on the floor weeping with nothing left to me. No dignity, no ambition, it was killing me, she was killing me over and over, until I found it in me to move." He paused, disengaging from Ed by leaning away and propping his head up on his hand. Ed was wide eyed and comatose beneath him. "I finally realized if I didn't move I'd start trying to end my own existence. After everything I've done and all that's happened that seemed a bit too ironically pathetic, even for me."

Hohenheim dropped his gaze thoughtfully and fell silent. It felt as if a lead bar had been thrust into his chest with Ed's arrival. The gate was never merciful, and it seemed likely it targeted him when purging Ed into this world, because it was a bitch. A vengeful, clever, vicious bitch.

Ed ran a hand over his wet face. He smeared away the last of his tears and lay catching his breath and managed a hold on himself. "Copies?" Ed rasped. Hohenheim didn't answer, but they both understood this was true. "Of everyone?" Ed sounded scared, and Hohenheim found this reasonable. It was appropriate to be scared, to be down right terrified.

"It seems to be true."

Ed winced, and slowly dragged his hand back down his face before curling it under him to his chest. "He smelled real though," Ed muttered, sounding mentally and physically tormented. "He smelled real." Ed eyes filled again with tears. "Felt real…" Hohenheim knew this was true. _Yes, they smelled and felt real because they were real, and that was the hell of it, the very hell of it. _"Does…" Ed croaked. "Does he have…any…memories?" Ed's voice was brittle with a desperate hope.

"Edward, they are not one in the same. They are two separate entities with the same make of vessel," Hohenheim said, feeling a bit of remorse when irritated impatience snuck into his voice and made his words short. "In this world he is someone else." He brushed Ed's sweat drenched bangs from Ed's face lovingly. "He is married, has a wife…" Ed winched as if he'd been stabbed, and took to aggressively blinking away the tears this caused. "It would be best if you don't see him again."

Ed sputtered a soft sound of protest. "But…I…he…." No real argument was made, and Hohenheim kept silent. He didn't feel he had to repeat himself._ It was for the best_. They both knew it.

"There is only one place I have seen in this world, which looks like ours," Hohenheim said thoughtfully. "I spent years there when I first arrived because I saw physical damage appear here from the other side." Ed didn't respond to this information at first, but then slowly, Ed propped himself up, sniffling heavily, but completely engaged.

"A place connected to ours?" Ed asked, eyes fat and red rimmed, voice raspy and tired. Ed looked like the survivor of a horrible accident, and this was fitting.

"You must have seen it," Hohenheim said, flashing a quick smile. "I know you would have found it." He was confident, even after all this time apart, and how different Edward had become, that Edward was keen enough to find the clues and discover it. "The city," he said. "The city beneath the city."

Ed's eyes widened in astonished understanding. "Remnants to the birth of a philosopher's stone?" Ed whispered. Hohenheim gave a nod and Ed scrambled to sit up giving his nose a quick wipe and licking his lips. "_I've seen it_," Ed said with excitement. "But…" Ed trailed off with a bit of uncertainly threatening his conviction. "…but I don't remember it clearly."

"I feel something inside there is the link between us. There is no other place I have witnessed that looks the same. Nor should that place even exist here." He had run over these thoughts a hundred times, but Ed was hearing them for the first time. Ed sat in a near catatonic stare of intense fascination and true desperation.

"Take me there," Ed said flatly, no room for argument in his tone. "Hohenheim, take me there."

* * *

Curtain falls on Chapter 8 ladies and gentleman.

You responded to something in this chapter, tell me what it was. You were perhaps surprised, saddened, touched by a visual, or string of dialogue. Share it in the box below. Chapters with high emotional turmoil are hard to write. Parts of this story were very difficult to craft for this reason. If you are enjoying it, please offer a small semblance of a thank you, and share a single glimmer or your response with a** review**.

Chapter 9: _Lighter Than Air_ will be up next Friday 03/01/13. Hope to see you there.

My ongoing thanks to you steady readers and steady reviewers. You bring me joy. : )


	9. Lighter Than Air

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Nine  
_Lighter Than Air_

- mirage -

Christopher was horrified with the news. For a moment he stood in a shocked comatose state with his mouth a gaping hole and his brow nit into a pinch of disbelief before he managed any type of speech. "You're leaving? That's it?" he asked, tone frantic and rising. "That's it!" Hohenheim was struggling to close his suitcase with Chris in his bedroom doorway. He had his elbow leaning onto the top and was adding body weight while fighting with the latch. "After all this time!" The suitcase gave a successful click and Hohenheim pulled it off the bed with one arm. Trying to downplay Christopher's response to his announcement he strolled past the boy and into the kitchen, but Chris followed with determination. "After all this time you're just leaving!"

Ed had nothing to pack and stood leaning into the kitchen counter dressed warmly and wearing a long wool coat. Draped about his neck in an adventurous romance he wore his scarf like a pilot and Chris was disgusted.

"I can't believe you're just leaving!" Chris pushed up to Hohenheim's side and Hohenheim felt a heavy sigh coming on. It was better not to get attached, always better not to get attached and go through this.

"Yes well," Ed said sarcastically. "I'll miss you too."

Chris threw Ed a vicious glare, and it was more hostile than Hohenheim had ever seen. "You wipe that smirk off your face!" Chris snapped, taking an aggressive step forward so his chest bumped Edward's. "Before I let it meet my fist!"

Ed pushed himself erect at once, and grabbed Chris by the lapel of his shirt. Hohenheim shot an arm between their faces, effectively separating them before things could go any further. "I won't have this before I leave," he said firmly. Ed released Chris's shirt and Chris stepped back looking sullen. "This is my last hour," he said, carrying his suitcase to the door. "I'd like to remember this city without kicking out a neighbor or bandaging one more part of my son's body." He gave both boys a disappointed glance, and they receded. Chris averted his gaze with shame, but Ed was irritated and simply reduced to a bored disinterested stare.

"I was just making conversation," Ed said defensively.

"Button your coat," Hohenheim snapped, saying more with his tone than anything else.

Ed narrowed his gaze with the command. Hohenheim's dwindling patience was not lost on Ed. For a moment he was silent, sizing up Hohenheim's irritation, before deciding it was safe enough to continue pushing the envelope. He returned to his original stance, using the counter for support with his weight. "I'll button it when I want."

Hohenheim dismissed Ed with a heavy exasperated sigh and turned to Chris. "Christopher." He dropped his hand onto Chris's shoulder. On Chris's face he could see the immense sadness his departure was causing, and an even greater frustration he was taking Ed and leaving Chris behind. "I want you to take my food, and all of my furniture."

Christopher lifted his gaze with shock. "I couldn't sir…" Chris sputtered. "That's…"

Hohenheim gave this a dismissive wave. He wouldn't accept no for an answer and he didn't have time for an argument. "I cannot take it with me," he said, stressing the reality of the situation. "The food will spoil if you leave it, and the furniture will be robbed, sold, or thrown away." Chris gave his head one last shake of hopeful denial they would change their minds and stay, but he could not. Ed could not stay in this apartment. "Please, take it." He reached into his pocket and extended the key. "What you don't want you can sell." Chris took the key slowly, with great reluctance, and an expression almost threatening tears. "You've brought me great company and I am proud of you Christopher." He took the boy in a tight hug and Chris returned it fiercely.

Ed slunk away from their side, keeping a polite silence, but seeming genuinely uncomfortable with the display of emotion.

"You're a good man," Hohenheim said, disengaging from the hug and giving Christopher's back a rough slap. "Don't let life get the best of you." Chris was faltering back into coordinated momentum and improved with the smack the way a coughing person comes to breathe easier.

"Where will you go?" Chris asked, pocketing the key.

Hohenheim went to his suitcase. Ed stood beside it looking incurious but was very much observant behind this façade. "I am not certain at this time," he said, bending down for his luggage before noticing Ed's still unbuttoned and opened coat. "What is this?" Hohenheim gestured to Ed's scarf with a brief laugh, and began the boy's buttons. "Are you an aviator?"

"A what?" Ed asked with confusion.

Hohenheim buttoned upward quickly with Chris standing at his side, mouth inching to speak but unsure of what to say. "You're new neighbors are nice." Hohenheim tucked Ed's scarf deep into Ed's collar. He did not want Ed catching cold while he was still recovering. German winters were filled with heavy wet snow, and it came suddenly and unmercifully. "Soon enough you'll forget I was even here." Ed was unimpressed with this sappy exchange and the fact he was being dressed. When Hohenheim looked up from the very last button Ed was glaring at him with mild irritation. Hohenheim gave Ed's miserable expression a smile and playfully nudged Ed's chin to the side. Having Edward annoyed was a guilty pleasure. Ed was most recognizable to him when angry.

"You can't really give me all this stuff," Chris said, voice weak with emotion. Hohenheim turned to the young glass maker and nodded confidently. _Yes he could_.

"Move my things or what you would like by the end of the week." Hohenheim gestured to the door and Ed left for it. "I've paid until then so you'll have enough time."

"You didn't need to do that," Chris choked, following them in heavy clomping steps. _This was the end._ "You don't need to give me this stuff and take care of me like this."

"That's right," Hohenheim agreed taking pause. Ed continued without him and exited into the hall. Hohenheim looked back at Christopher's young face, and it was stricken with a grief that seemed too great for him. It was grief he shouldn't know for many years, and briefly Hohenheim tried to imagine what it would be like to live with only twenty some years under his belt. Only twenty some years of the sun rising and falling, of seasons, of meals, of books, of experience, and suddenly Christopher seemed frightfully frail and vulnerable to him and he almost didn't want to leave the boy. The part of himself that reminded him he was still human woke up and bit like a flea. It might have won if this were a century ago, if this was before Trisha, but now there was enough of him that was something of the Earth and its realms to observe his human self objectively. Hohenheim felt his reason override his heart almost as quickly as his heart spoke. "But I choose to Christopher," he said, stepping into the hall with Ed. "I choose to."

Ed was waiting casually at Hohenheim's side holding his tongue gracefully. He wanted to depart and for this to conclude, when from the end of the hall Mr. Brichnard arrived coming up the stairs. Ed froze. His stomach turned into a ball of cement and what little was in it leapt up his throat and sat there. In his head he saw the same face, the same hair cut, the same body in different clothes and a different hall, and that person was coming to him, that person was his.

Ed staggered back and flat into Hohenheim and Christopher, startling them both from their conversation. "I…I forgot something," Ed muttered, ducking his head with embarrassment while trying to keep control of himself.

The emotional charge of seeing Mustang here affected him badly and he was trying to hide it. His legs felt weak, and his heart was hammering in his chest, making things difficult. He tried to take a step back to the apartment but Chris grabbed his left arm to stabilize his wobbly movement and Hohenheim grabbed his right arm to stop him.

"Ed, you okay?" Chris asked, becoming concerned despite their rocky acquaintance. Chris followed Ed's gaze to Mr. Brichnard with confusion. "Have you met him yet?"

Ed tried to get away from Christopher. He didn't want a peer to see him quivering from a stranger's presence like a pansy. "Let me go," Ed snapped, tugging at his arms. Christopher obeyed but Hohenheim did not.

"Ed," Hohenheim said softly. "He won't bother us. We'll miss our ticket." Hohenheim wrapped his arm around Ed's shoulders and picked up his suitcase. They did not have time they could waste and Mr. Brichnard was a stranger to them. He would not interfere and possibly wouldn't even acknowledge them after what happened.

Ed stiffened when Hohenheim trapped him and began tugging him along. Ed stumbled under the commanding pressure and weight of Hohenheim's arm, and felt like a four year old holding his father's hand.

"Keep yourself relaxed Ed, remember what I have told you," Hohenheim whispered, very aware of how Ed's body was coiling into itself with intent to disappear. It was as if he were leading Ed into fire, and Ed was pulling from the heat and danger with each forward step. This would be the harsh reality of Europe. Overcoming the old faces, and truly understanding survival could be achieved only with self diligence. "Just be brave," Hohenheim said, keeping his voice private.

Brichnard approached them in route to his door. "Good Morning," Hohenheim greeted.

"Morning," Brichnard said, sneaking a glance at Ed. Ed had his eyes cast to the side in torment and humiliation. _Roy's voice was unmistakable, and it made him want to throw himself at the man._

Ed jerked in Hohenheim's hold, turning to the side and prying out from Hohenheim's grip. _He needed to get away! _And he needed to do so _now! "Leave me,"_ Ed hissed, beneath his breath. He pulled his right shoulder up to his chin and squirmed as if Brichnard, this stranger, was undressing him with his eyes. _It was unbearable!_

Then Brichnard spoke in Roy's voice. "You're leaving?" and Ed remembered that voice from a quiet morning that was intimately his. _You're leaving all ready? But it's so early. Who do you think is going to mark you late for work if I am here too?_

"_Leave me," _Ed whispered desperately, and Hohenheim relinquished his hold. Ed's force was powerful enough it would cause a scene to keep it, and Ed limped quickly from Hohenheim's side and away from them.

"A change in schedule I am afraid," Hohenheim said, trying to keep Brichnard's attention. Brichnard watched Ed leave looking troubled the way the neighbor with a young wife is troubled by an unpredictable and possibly dangerous young boy.

"You're moving out this suddenly?" Brichnard asked, seeming surprised. Brichnard looked confused they had somehow managed to pack and move all of their things without him noticing and Hohenheim wasn't going to confirm any suspicions that they hadn't.

Hohenheim gave a nod. Ed, for reasons Hohenheim had to assume were more personal than physical, did not seem to be able to manage a straight line as he departed, and walked into the wall in order to rest his arm up against it. From behind them Christopher went to Ed. With a stomp in his step and an expression of irritation he was obligated to help, Christpher pulled Ed upright.

"Yes, we have a car waiting," Hohenheim said.

Brichnard looked a bit alarmed with their exit and Hohenheim found this confusing until the man offered his hand. "I wanted to apologize for yesterday," Brichnard said quickly, looking apologetic even now. "If this is the last time I see you, I didn't want there to be any hard feelings." Hohenheim was stunned. He took Brichnard's hand and found it hard to reply. Was this man truly noble and humble enough to apologize when it was so blatantly them who were…what they were?

"Yes," Hohenheim muttered, voice barely a whisper. "It's appreciated." This was the truth. "And we were…" _what were they?_ "Felt…terrible about the way things developed and I sincerely hope we didn't startle you're lovely young wife."

Brichnard gave this a smile, the true grin of a man who had mastered himself, and dismissed this. Ed had not made if far enough away that Brichnard was excluded, and he took those few steps to Ed's side and extended his hand.

Ed pushed into Christopher as if Brichnard's hand was a hot poker, and he couldn't stand the thought of it touching him. "No hard feelings," Brichnard said kindly, keeping that award winning smile.

Ed looked at the hand.

He stared at the man's hand the way the starving look at food and the poor look at gold. Christopher was confused and almost disgusted with Ed's apparent non response, but Hohenheim could see the intensity which had taken Edward's form in a tight grasp. Brichnard's hand, held mere inches away, had the power of flame to cotton, and Ed looked ready to burn. His body was trembling and his mouth was dry and chalky. He was thinking he may never, and believing he may never, see the man Brichnard looked like again. He may never for another moment have the chance to touch Brichnard and imagine it was someone else. Though Ed was forced, by the rules of this world and the evil game that he played, to pretend he was a stranger, and that Brichnard was a stranger, this was the last time he would ever have the chance to ignore that rule and do whatever it was Hohenheim could see Ed wishing he could do. To do that thing that made Ed want to burn. That thing that was almost burning him.

Christopher was the first to speak after Brichnard's hand hung in the air for what Christopher deemed just too long to bear. "He's rude," Chris said flatly, startling Brichnard a bit. "By nature it seems."

Ed thrust his hands into Brichnard's and Hohenheim saw Ed squeeze. "Thank you," Ed whispered, voice collapsing in on itself so Ed exhaled his words rather than pronounced them. Ed looked as if he'd stuck his hand into a furnace, and squeezed Brichnard's before closing his own eyes and cringing. It was the painful clutch of a last reunion, and it was born of truly knowing loss enough to recognize it approaching. Ed hung onto Brichnard as long as he thought he could manage himself, before turning abruptly for the stairs and releasing the man. Ed grabbed Christopher forcibly by the lapels, and began limping down them while clutching Christopher for help.

Brichnard looked sad, and watched Ed hobble away at what Hohenheim knew was top speed for his son. "He is of delicate mind then?" Brichnard asked, turning to Hohenheim with a sympathetic gaze. Ed reached the bottom of the stairs and Chris was not happy he was made to serve as a crutch and the boys were arguing. "Since birth or, how did it happen?"

Hohenheim shifted his suitcase a bit higher and gave Brichnard's compassionate expression a weak smile. "You remind him of someone," he said softly. Brichnard became puzzled. "Good luck to you and your wife."

Hohenheim took the back stairs he had carried Ed up so many days ago and exited out into the street and the snow. In the early morning the city was very much alive and although the sky was the dark color of ash, and the snowflakes were dropping like feathers into the street, Germany continued life just the same.

Drawn up to the curb idling with the back passenger door open was their waiting car. Ed was already inside with Chris standing alongside with his hands jammed into his pockets looking annoyed.

Hohenheim handed his suitcase to the waiting driver, a short miserable man who was angry he was left standing outside the car in the falling snow. He took it eagerly wearing old and thin gray mittens with holes sprouting in the finger tips and carried it to the meager trunk as Hohenheim turned to Christopher.

Christopher looked barely born into the world, standing in the snow covered street without a jacket. The bell to the bakery door was jingling as people came in and out, and the bustle on the street was that of many soft German voices mingling into a collective sound of population. In this sea of commotion Christopher seemed like a single candle flame. One human life that would like a candle spark, burn, and die out. He would accomplish things within his life, or he would not. He would find a mate and breed, or he would not. The only thing that was nearly certain, was that the humans a hundred years from now would barely, if even, know that he existed, and that every single accomplishment managed, from the time Christopher was born until the time he would die, would be forgotten, and therefore meaningless in the One and All of the world's flow. For this reason, on that smallest level that he was still human, Hohenheim felt grief for leaving the boy because he understood that the blooming flower Christopher was, would be such a fleeting moment in the cosmos, that there was near a creature outside of himself that had means to appreciate Christopher's life.

"Thank you Christopher." He took the boy in one last hug. "My best wishes for you," he whispered, before climbing into the car and shutting the door. Through the small window he gave Chris a wave and the driver pulled them into the road and they left. He didn't look back to see Christopher's struggling expression of sadness, or the single hand the boy had in his pocket turning the new apartment key over and over in a frantic state of despair. Hohenheim kept his eyes forward because in this world the gate played an evil game, and your rational side had to hold court over the objections of your heart.

"It won't be long now," Hohenheim said.

Ed had seated himself as far to the other side of the car as possible and was facing the window with almost his entire body. Hohenheim could feel Edward's desire for secluded privacy and glanced only briefly in Ed's direction as he spoke.

With the light of the day and the darkened color of the filthy street snow he could see Ed's face reflected back through the window. In sorrow Ed was holding his eyes tightly with his flesh hand. "I have an amazing thing to show you when we arrive Ed," Hohenheim said. He felt guilty a bit of excitement snuck into his voice while Ed was still battling the sight and touch of Brichnard, but he could not help himself. He knew what little he had to share would fascinate and even shock Ed, and he was eager. After a moment Ed gave a long and deep sniffle and Hohenheim reached over and laid his hand on Ed's bony knee. "We'll be there soon," he reassured.

* * *

Their car ride was an expected forty minutes in which there was not much talking. During this time Hohenheim contemplated what he was actually planning to do. He was seriously planning to take Ed to see the city beneath the city when the trip on his healthy and unwounded body was difficult. Having a deep concern for Ed's wavering health he knew it was maddening he felt so at peace with his decision to subject Ed to a dangerous and emotionally gutting experience. With the city falling away to the open field of their destination Hohenheim realized he felt at peace because he believed peace was not reachable until they shut possibility of crossing back through the gate from their minds. This feat had taken him years, and like a cancer it ate at him every day he carried it. For Ed to let go, for him to embrace Europe and this world in whatever state he could, Ed needed to at first come to terms with the fact his home, and the home he loved, would not come back. That he was forever separated from it, and all of the things and people he loved would be forever separated from him. In a condition of longing, in a condition of hope, there could be no recovery. The possibility, and even the fantasy of it, had to be killed before Europe could even begin to look real.

Their driver pulled along the high fence traveling the impressive two hundred foot length of the field and stopped. He had only been paid to take them and so he did not get out. He did not speak, he did not move for their luggage. He was ready to be rid of them the way Germany seemed ready to be rid of socialism.

Ed had drifted into a light sleep somewhere during the ride and Hohenheim exited the car and retrieved his suitcase before calling for the boy. "Ed?" Ed's head snapped up and Ed wiped his face sloppily. "We've arrived, come here." Hohenheim beckoned for Ed to exit the car, and Ed slid to the open door with curiosity for this more rural part of Germany.

"I need to get some coffee," Ed muttered slinking out and stretching cautiously. Ed arched his back and gave his torso a quick twist while looking up and down the fence with confusion.

"Coffee stunts your growth," Hohenheim teased, taking Ed's arm and steering them to the right.

Ed looked back toward the car which pulled away, before curiosity at the collection of incoming cars and arriving German people who were all traveling in the same direction as them. It was not a large crowd, but it was a crowd, and it was following the fence toward the opening up ahead. There were mainly men, wearing the sophisticated styles of Germany. Few had walking canes and Edwardian suits of up and coming suffragist styles, and others with Black Derby hats. There were the women who came with them, the young pretty things with their blonde hair, and the mothers holding their children's hands. The little ones were excited and they tugged eagerly or raced ahead ready to enter into the fence and arrive.

"Why so rushed pops?" Ed asked flatly, looking over his shoulder at the family with two young boys who kept racing up ahead until the mother would call them back. "We got somewhere we really need to be?" Ed asked, sounding intrigued but also a bit nervous._ Germany would do that to you._

"We have tickets and we have to arrive on time for them to be accepted," Hohenheim said, indicating the large absence of fence which served as the entrance. They approached and rounded the corner with Ed lifting his gaze toward what appeared to be a giant white cloud behind it, before stopping dead in his tracks.

Ed tipped his head so far back Hohenheim worried Ed would topple, but Ed's eyes were wide and his jaw unhinged in complete amazement as he stared at the large white blimp. It spanned four hundred and twenty feet and the people about it, them included, were as tiny ants.

"What is this?" Ed gasped lifting his gaze upward following the height into the sky. Hohenheim felt excitement tickle him as he watched Ed absorb one of the greatest extensions of technology Amestris did not have. "What…how…." Ed lifted a weak point with his arm fully extended and his mouth opening and closing slightly as if he had more to say and couldn't manage it. "What…" Ed whispered. "How…" Standing hundreds of feet tall, looking as smooth and perfect as white glass, Hohenheim could see Ed's darting eyes drinking in the architecture of the structure before noticing the waiting line of people and ticket collectors at the base. "People are—people will ride that!" Ed exclaimed, turning to Hohenheim. "This is—I mean it's huge and—what could, how could such a structure—are they riding that? Really riding it!" Ed asked, sounding thrilled. Sounding as if he were watching two oxygen molecules link and realizing every time he inhaled he took in millions of them.

"In this world Ed, man has found a way to fly," Hohenheim said, smiling widely. He didn't have a particular love for flight or ever too great a respect, although there was respect for the science of high altitudes, he was waiting with much anticipation for Edward to discover this. The anticipation of Ed approaching discovery was immense for him.

He remembered it most clearly from a particular summer night in which he stood waiting for Edward to realize the small bits of twinkling light he was chasing around the backyard were bugs. Trisha had told the boys they were flecks of stars floating down to Earth. Alphonse had been almost too young to understand this but Ed was captivated. Sitting outside with a large glass of iced tea in the hot August weather Hohenheim had watched Ed run around in just a pair of jean shorts trying to grab the pieces of stars. He was waiting, with a sense of growing excitement for that moment in which Ed would learn fireflies weren't stars but insects, and it came when Ed finally caught one and squished it inside his tiny fist. _Mom! _Ed had screamed, looking scared when he opened his palm and saw a dark smear. _I broke the star!_ Trisha was holding Alphonse, who had no desire to chase anything so late in the evening, and she broke out laughing. _Oh! It's a bug!_ Ed held up his murderous hand with his other trying frantically to grab the fireflies coming his way. _Can I put them in jars!_ Ed went running for the house before either of them answered. _I'll get one!_

"This is what's known as an airship," Hohenheim said, raising a hand upward to indicate the massive cloud. "People do travel on it, and today so will we."

Ed's jaw was on the ground with his golden eyes tracing the intimidating girth and height that reached into the sky. "Is that safe?" Ed sounded uncertain.

"Yes."

"How?" Ed demanded. Hohenheim placed a polite hand on the low of Ed's back and kept Ed with him as he approached the ticket line. Ed cooperated, but also resisted with indecision and he stumbled with so much of his attention studying the aerostat. "How would it be possible to keep such a large structure in the air?" Ed asked, sounding skeptical. "With what type of propulsion? A simple motor wouldn't suffice in size. Where are these stored? Are they used a lot here?" Hohenheim brought them to the ticket line and began searching his pockets for the tickets.

Coming closer Ed could see the strong cables anchoring the floating blimp. The maintenance men, looking no larger then specks of pepper in egg yoke, were conducting basic checks all about the passenger pouch saddled to the underneath. This was known as the gondola, and served the same concept as the basket to a hot air balloon. With man's design it could house an impressive amount of passengers and did so in a finely crafted space. Tickets were not cheap, and with the Mark ever falling, they were now worse than ever.

"What happens if it crashes?" Ed asked. A man on the maintenance crew men was yelling directives and pointing upward at the blimp with his wrench. To his right a thick anchor cable pinned it like a cloud on a string. It was nearly as thick as the man's torso, and Ed stared it with increasing unease. The blimp did not seem parked to Ed, it seemed trapped. As if it would pop free and wildly zigzag upwards as soon as it was released. "Hohenheim?" Ed reached to Hohenheim's upper sleeve and began tugging. "Has this world designed some type of super…good…process for this thing going nutty?" Hohenheim was checking all of his front pockets, but so far the tickets were missing. "Hohenheim," Ed snapped, voice tightening. "_Answer me._"

"Of course, which question would you like me to begin with?" Hohenheim teased. He found their tickets in his interior breast pocket, and handed Ed his. "This form of transportation is known as a LTA Edward." Ed's eyes traveled back to the blimp. Luggage was sorted off to the side of the stairs and Hohenheim added theirs to the pile. "Lighter than air." He stepped through the small barricade the line was filtering into and handed off his ticket and Ed imitated him perfectly. "Do you want a window seat?" He approached the narrow set of Rolling Stairs which were positioned with the top at the blimp's gondola door.

Ed was beginning to look increasingly anxious over the entire concept of the blimp. Fascination was still high, but the blimp was growing incredibly real coming closer and being forced upon them. "I am not sure," Ed muttered, looking reluctant to put things nicely.

Hohenheim laughed with Ed's expression. "That was the very same face I wore when I first traveled here." He could relate. The blimp appeared like a giant bubble. An unstable and extremely dangerous balloon this world did not have the talent to master.

"How high are we going up?" Ed asked. He cautiously grasped the railing to the Rolling Stairs with his automail and stepped on. It was built with basic boards, nailed together heavily and permanently ascending to nowhere until rolled up against the blimp. Ed limped up a few steps before leaning over the side to look down. "This doesn't feel very sturdy." In fact the stairs weren't. It was a simple structure and simple design. At the top you were only fifteen feet up so a fall was not serious. "How high are we going up in this thing Hohenheim?" Ed asked again.

Hohenheim had ignored this question the first time so he could concoct a false height that Ed would accept as a mathematical possibility. Since Amestris had not even considered going upward, and was still expanding ground travel with extensive trains and ever expanding technology for their automobiles, the idea of traveling into the sky the way only God's creators did was a bit frightening the way human transmutation was frightening. It seemed yet another way man was trying to tread on something which was reserved for the deities. So Hohenheim had decided not to tell Ed how high they were going until they were at least mid sky.

At the top of the stairs a blimp employee was waiting in the open doorway helping people inside, and he answered Ed's question when he heard it. "Today we will be flying anywhere from a thousand to seven thousand feet up sir," the man said. Ed stopped dead. "Do make sure you buckle up when we lift." Ed looked back over the side of the stairs cringing with uncertainty and stared at the grass.

Hohenheim stepped into the blimp and gave the young employee a cold glare. "Thank you," he said curtly. Ed had not moved since the attendant spoke and the people stuck behind him were beginning to look annoyed. Hohenheim reached out for Ed and gently took Ed's flesh elbow. "Come on Ed," he said softly, pulling with a kind but a non negotiable strength which brought Ed inside. Ed's demeanor had completely changed, and Ed was very stiff.

"Thousands of feet up?" Ed kept his voice down but it was panicky. "Are they sure they've mastered that?" Ed gestured to the rickety stairs as Hohenheim pulled him over the threshold.

"They seemed to have," Hohenheim said. It was the most honest answer. The interior of the gondola was a large oval room with windows on both the right and left. It was made to look inviting with small dinning tables and booths. Hohenheim looked about for someplace quiet two people could sit with a bit of privacy but it would be difficult. "Do you need to use the lavatory before we leave?" he asked. Ed jerked his arm away with insult, and Hohenheim walked to a small two person table below the windows on the right. He lifted a hand towards it in suggestion and Ed stomped to his side and began easing himself into a chair. "Edward, do—"

"If I needed to I would have done so," Ed snapped, leaning back in his chair and brooding. "I am adjusting to my limbs now, so I think I can take care of myself." Ed's voice was thick with embarrassed disgust and he avoided Hohenheim's eyes looking uncomfortable with the type of questions spawning between them.

"These blimps do not have restrooms, is why I asked." Hohenheim sat down at Ed's side and took the window seat Ed had left vacant. Before them was a thin table, bolted down as was all furniture, and set against the back of the booth in front of them. While most tables were set up similar to those within a restaurant, a few, like this one, offered more seclusion.

Hohenheim lifted a hand to signal one of the waitresses fluttering about as people arrived. Greater then the luxury of mode of travel was the cost of refreshments while in flight. Edward was witnessing, although he did not know it, top of the line service.

A young woman came quickly to their table and smiled. "Can we have something warm to drink please?" Hohenheim ordered. "Perhaps something with a liqueur, not much." The girl was beginning a brief bow, before glancing curiously to Ed with the order.

"Certainly sir," she said. "I…am authorized to serve coffee with a gentlemen's drink."

Hohenheim gave her a warm smile. She was young and would have been very lucky to find this job. Appropriately she seemed nervous about upsetting them, and Ed lifted his gaze to her the way Ed seemed to do towards all German people. As if she were a painted picture he was studying and not a human he could live next door to. "That sounds perfect," Hohenheim said. "How about some coffee with Amoretto, and please make mine a bit strong." She gave a nod and left quickly.

Ed turned to Hohenheim with a look of suspicion. "What's Amoretto?"

"An Italian liqueur, made of apricots and almond pits, it's sweet."

Ed's look became accusatory. "You trying to get me drunk old man?"

Hohenheim didn't answer this. The lift off with blimps was sometimes jittery, some times abrupt and the change in g-force from the proper accelerations caused a tingling in your stomach and lower limbs. Coming to this world and experiencing the synonymous oddity of flight and change of g-force was nerve-wracking. So Ed, who was still adjusting to the absence of those he loved and a body which hated him, Hohenheim thought would benefit from mellowing liqueur. When he had experienced flight he was alone and could share it with no one, using that experience, he was trying to prepare the best one he could for Ed.

Ed turned away from Hohenheim when he received no answer. He watched the blimp fill with people feeling as if he were in a boat taking on water. Some of the small children who were racing about laughing outside were now sitting obediently with their families. A few of the single women, wearing more extravagant dresses, sat alone with the elegant pinstripe and dark colored fabrics framing their petite upper bodies, and then flowing into a sail as their dress tried to fit within the narrow chairs.

"There's a lot of people here," Ed muttered, watching the seats fill. "Each of them weighs an average of 150 pounds." Hohenheim felt a mental sigh with Ed's brain calculating. He glanced about for their waitress and hoped their coffee would not be held up with other orders. "That's a lot of weight, can it hold that? Is there a maximum weigh limit we're observing?" Ed asked, sounding angry with his own nervousness. A boat taking on enough water to sink could sail no better than one half full. "How are we planning to lift all these people?"

"The blimp is filled with Hydrogen to lift," Hohenheim said. He spotted their waitress crossing the floor with a small tray as new guests weaved in and around her. "The magnitude of the balloon makes the weight of such a small population easily feasible."

Ed was horrified, and jerked around in his chair to stare at Hohenheim. "Hydrogen is flammable _and _explosive in a vapor form!" Ed hissed, keeping his voice low, but not nearly as low as he should. "You put me in a death trap!"

The waitress arrived and lowered the tray. Ed startled with her interruption and awkwardly composed himself with silence. Politely, she served them both without any acknowledgement they were arguing. She kept a dutifully trained gaze on the cups she set down, and away from the expression of wild concern Ed was hiding poorly.

Hohenheim felt certain there were many people in Europe afraid of heights or small spaces who might react the way Edward was on blimps. If Ed became worse with the lift, he planned to use that as explanation, and he did not think the staff would become so alarmed things would be a problem.

As soon as the waitress left Ed returned to his argument. "We're not moving like a typical balloon, are we? A hot air balloon?" Hohenheim lifted his cup. "Are these people so stupid they think they can control an explosive vapor with fire some thousand—seven thousand feet up!"

"Of course not." Hohenheim took a sip. The Amoretto was not as strong as he had hoped it would be. It tasted to be only a shot in his coffee, and he was truly hoping for two. "That would be asinine." He gestured Ed try his coffee and Ed snatched it obediently while lost in his fretting mind.

Ed took a sip and promptly grimaced. "Ew." Ed jerked the cup down and stared into it with disgust. "This tastes bitter."

Hohenheim offered his cup. "Let's switch." They traded cups. Edward had been given the cup with two shots of Amoretto, and now sipped Hohenheim's coffee without complaint. While it was unclear if Edward liked the taste, he certainly liked it better then his first sampling.

"Now Ed, the blimp is controlled with gas of a higher density, allowing us to adjust height to sail like a ship with a rudder." Ed was tipping his cup upward slowly as he emptied it. "This isn't the first blimp to travel, so have some confidence." Ed had no confidence in the German people. With the conclusion they were flying with hydrogen he was incredibly animated and his eyes jumped about the commotion in the cabin with a level of anxiety that was almost stomach clenching. "You'll do best to just sit back and relax," Hohenheim advised.

Ed roughly sat his empty cup down and the saucer gave a protesting clank. "Okay," Ed said, a bit out of breath. Unconsciously Ed slid his hand to Hohenheim's arm rest and the man gave it a comforting pat. For a short fifteen minutes Ed sat still and quiet trying to calm himself before they lifted. It came softly, but quickly, and the entire cabin felt a minute tremble that was unmistakable because it was the tremble of a suspended item with no tether to land.

Ed tensed at once and closed his eyes. "Is this normal?" Ed asked, keeping himself in check.

"Yes, perfectly normal," Hohenheim reassured, lowering his voice to be discrete. In the pit of his stomach he could feel a tickling he knew Ed was also experiencing but Ed looked as if he were suffering with it. The moment Ed felt it appear he twitched, and then grabbed at his stomach with his flesh hand as if he'd be ill. "You're just feeling the change in weight on your body caused by our acceleration Ed, it won't hurt you." Ed tightened the grip over his stomach with his tense expression growing tighter "You might feel it a few other places, and this is normal." As they rose their bodies registered the change in a prickling tickle traveling up their legs and pooling in their lower stomachs and laps. It was brief, and left just as suddenly as it came. Afterward Ed opened his eyes breathing quickly with relief.

Hohenheim leaned to the window and looked out. Below, the stairs they had climbed appeared as a tiny white line, and the people all about the area were tiny moving fleas. "Ed, do you want to look?" Hohenheim asked with some excitement. "It's really breathtaking."

"No." Ed shook his head quickly.

"You'll never see anything like it."

"No, no I don't," Ed said angrily. "No I don't." Ed's voice broke into a whisper and Hohenheim was about to prod a little more when they hit an air pocket and the blimp sunk rapidly for a few feet before continuing to rise. In the cabin a few of the women gave squeaks of excitement and one of the young children cried out. Ed was included and blurted a loud and startled, "Shit!" Ed wedged himself to his chair, squeezing the arm rests with white knuckles when the pocket gave them the distinct and unrecognizable sensation of falling. Ed immediately closed his eyes before opening them in a dark glare for Hohenheim. "We're malfunctioning?" Ed asked, sounding more accusatory than inquisitive.

Hohenheim shook his head. "We're in the sky Ed. We simply met a mass of air moving at a different speed." Ed looked horrified with this explanation. "Do not confuse this with wind. Flight refers to this as turbulence, but it's informally known as an air pocket even though it would be more accurate to call it a draft pocket, due to the upward or downward draft causing us to adjust our altitude suddenly."

"What?" Ed squeaked, entirely overrun with the science of flight while experiencing it. "Listen," Ed snapped, tipping his head toward his lap, "from now on we travel on the ground!"

"You should embrace air travel son, it is the way of the future." Ed shook his head with intense disagreement. "Air pockets will not disrupt us at this altitude, anything dangerous here would be incredibly rare." He finished this sentence just as they hit a second pocket, and the sensation was that of driving over a downed tree.

Ed's hand snapped out and snatched Hohenheim's in a tight grip. "I don't care, I don't care," Ed whispered, keeping his eyes closed. "I don't want to fall out of the sky," Ed hissed angrily, tipping his head up and leaning it back in the chair. "What a stupid and pointless way to die."

Unaware of his action, Hohenheim smiled when he heard Ed no longer felt a desire to embrace death to escape life, and watched his son hang onto his seat like a cat to a high branch. He knew Ed found the lift frightening, but outwardly, to an unknown party, he did not think Ed would look frightened. To the cabin Ed looked furious, and sat stiff, hanging tight to the chair with an expression of unquestioning aggression. After a third air pocket Ed slowly opened his eyes and the gaze was dangerous, like a bull waiting to charge.

"You're doing fine," Hohenheim said, giving Ed's hand a squeeze. Ed did not seem comfortable with conversation and was focusing intently within himself. Due to their speed their raise in altitude took near a half an hour, and this was long enough for Ed to believe his entire ride might be this unpleasant. "I am impressed Ed," Hohenheim teased. "You're doing much better than I did in fact.

Ed grunted with a bit of disgust. "It's customary for the student to surpass the teacher," Ed muttered, closing his eyes again. "Although I suppose the teacher has to be around to teach."

"Edward," Hohenheim lowered his tone near scolding. "I know with your intelligence there is a way for you to see the logical path I chose. My reasons for doing what I did."

"I don't want to see," Ed snapped, giving a quick twisting squirm of his body as if he wanted to shake that concept off him. "_I don't want to ever see the path of abandonment,_" Ed said viciously. "I don't want to know it. I will never walk it. When I have children I'll never recognize it, because I am ten times the man you are, and will never leave my family."

Hohenheim felt stunned. Ed's words hurt like barbs which shot out from Ed's body and stabbed into him. He was hooked to the boy. With invisible tethers he was trapped, and even Ed's slightest moves pulled on strings to his open wounds. Hearing Edward's thoughts, as Ed gave them in pieces here and there; he was beginning to learn Edward's loathing for him came largely from the boy's inability and inconceivability to understand what he'd done because Edward could not imagine a situation in which he would do the same. Ed was very clear: he would not leave his family, and that seemed the end. There was nothing situational about it.

After close to ten minutes of smooth vertical sailing Ed emptied his lungs with relief. "Finally," Ed said. He uprooted his hand from Hohenheim and ran it down his face. The cabin also seemed excited with the successful lift and a low murmur of chatter had picked up almost suddenly.

Ed leaned his head toward Hohenheim and lifted his eyebrows in an expression of confidence Hohenheim had not seen. "That's what I think," Ed said plainly. "So now you know."

"Yes," Hohenheim said softly. "Now I know." Understanding Edward's hate did not make it easier to bear, but it did clearly define why it was hard to bear, and for that Hohenheim was thankful. "I am glad you have such resolve." He meant this honestly but Ed twisted his expression as if this comment were the dumbest thing he'd ever heard.

"It's not resolve," Ed said, leaning back in his chair with his body becoming heavy. "I would like to think it's the human thing to do, and that most people do it." Ed glanced over with a scolding look. "You're the one doing something different, haven't you ever figured that out?"

Hohenheim heard the words Ed wasn't speaking. _You're the one doing something different. You're the one leaving your family. You're the one abandoning your family. How many other people do you know doing that? How common is that Hohenheim of Light?_

"You should sleep," Hohenheim suggested. He suddenly felt unable to continue, and desperate for a break from Edward's insistent nature the way he imagined Edward felt desperate to break free of the day bed.

"I was waiting for your order," Ed said, cracking a small smile. "And I assumed it would be to sleep."

Hohenheim looked at the coffee cup Edward had emptied. Was it the alcohol that was helping to lubricate much of this? Hohenheim tried to consider how youth of Edward's age, and meager body weight would respond to their first shot of Amoretto. Was it possible Ed was finding a drunken man's honesty? Or was the alcohol simply helping to fade away the self conscious or consequence fearing notions Ed might have with divulging information?

Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Ed, but Ed had closed his eyes and looked at peace in his chair. In this world, where Hohenheim had a fresh body with new skin and new bones, he wasn't the rotting corpse he was becoming in Amestris. He could not show Ed the flesh that was turning purple and the odd bouts of slime that seeped up from his pores. He had nothing to show for what he was running from. He'd never seen Ed look at him with the horror and sadness Trisha had when his hair came out in clumps and she reached forward and actually dared to touch the moldy fruit that had become patches of him. Edward only knew him as the man he was now: healthy, flawless, and unburdened.

Exiting from the blimp proved to be as complicated as entering and Edward had problems with the high stairs. Even though Hohenheim advised against it, Ed watched them land. With his face in the window Ed watched the world come into focus at a slow zoom for over half an hour. The feeling of descent, which also caused a tickling sensation, had Ed looking green after twenty minutes. With the blimp jostling as it was anchored down Hohenheim pushed Ed back to his seat with him rattling questions about weight, speed, and height. None of these he answered, and Ed never noticed.

Ed managed down the wobbly narrow stairs to the foot of the blimp looking happy to be back on land. "Does air travel make you tired?" Ed asked, rubbing at the back of his neck while Hohenheim collected their suitcase. "Also, what do we do about the change in air density?"

"Ed, these are wonderful dinner topics." Hohenheim collected their suitcase and gave it to Ed. Ed looked confused. "I am going to hail us a car, and then we'll get a room."

"We're staying here overnight?"

"Yes, tomorrow we'll arrive there."

Ed gave a slow thoughtful nod. Hohenheim left the large enclosed field, known as the landing zone, with Ed marveling at the white mammoth balloon. About the bustling people Ed was the only person staring upward holding a single suitcase.

The city of Kempten was significantly busier than Munich, and Hohenheim found the cabs had no interest in him with the arriving passengers and daily travel. They were passing steadily and the sidewalks were very crowded. The weather here was also clearer, and the sun was managing to peek through in places and cause the snow to sparkle. Although Kempton was a smaller city than Munich, and no where near the size of Berlin, with winter events in full swing, it was filled with its own form of German tourists.

Hohenheim grew impatient when the eighth taxi passed him by, and he stepped off the sidewalk and raised his arm. The road parallel the landing zone was part of the main stretch and wider than usual allowing almost three lanes of traffic and plenty of room to navigate around parked cars. One lane in a taxi stopped and stood idling. Hohenheim turned back to the landing zone and cupped his mouth. "Edward!" he called. There was no where for the taxi to pull in and the cars were continuing around the motionless vehicle.

Ed looked over with Hohenheim's yell and Hohenheim beckoned dramatically. "Come on! We need to go!"

Ed hefted the suitcase up a bit on his left side and began a quick walk that matured into a fast shuffle. With Ed puffing small clouds of breath about his chin the boy was almost to the road when a sudden expression of fear washed over his face as clearly as if someone had just plunged a knife into his body. "Hey!" Ed cried, sounding frantic.

Hohenheim lowered the arm he had raised while beckoning. _Ed looked panicked. _Immediately he felt a swell of confusion because he couldn't identify a source for Edward's sudden alarm.

In only a second, Ed stiffened and broke into a run with the suitcase weighing heavily on his shoulder before simply dropping it. Ed raised his free hand in a wild gesture to something on Hohenheim's right and yelled to him, "Hohenheim! Look out!"

That was when Hohenheim felt the pain of a forceful collision impact his side. Vaguely he believed he heard the screech of tires, but after the force, which took his breath as efficiently as a rock to his chest, the world was going black.

Hohenheim lost his sight in the brief moment the car slammed into his side and threw him forward. It came, struggling to stop, it's back fishtailing unstably, and the front wheels twisting about as the driver widely tried to balance the movement. Hohenheim hit the snow and ice covered ground harshly and slid several feet ahead of the iron grille which had struck him. Snow rolled into his collar, and up onto his face. With sound returning from a distant and murky place, Hohenheim opened his eyes to the white sky of Germany laying back down in the filthy snow of the street, just in time to see Ed race up to his side and drop to his knees.

Ed looked wild having just watched a car ram his only connection to this world. It was more than the panic of a friend or even a child watching injury come to their parent; it was the panic of the deserted, loosing the only other life form they knew.

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Thank you for reading! What do you of Hohenheim and Ed's developing relationship and the German land? I do hope you enjoyed the blimp : )

So many of you have dropped the most impressive plot bunnies in reviews and messages, I hope where I take this story won't disappoint anyone. Some of my most nerve wracking chapters are growing closer, and Chapter 10 will give you a taste.

Chapter 10: Déjà vu will be up next Friday 3/8/13, I hope to see you there.

Reviews are always welcome, please drop something in the box below : )

My ever continued, and deepest appreciation, to those of you reading and consistently reviewing. After I post I hit my review page and look for your familiar names. My sweetest thanks goes out to all of you for continuing to grace me with your thoughts. They're wonderful.

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_Note: As we move onto Chapter 10 the rating for this story will increase to M/MA. My hope is that you will continue reading, but please observe your own reader discretion._


	10. Deja Vu

_Please note: This story's rating has now increased from K+ to M/MA. Please observe your own reader discretion. Some scenes may appear graphic. _

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The Silent Heart  
Chapter Ten  
_Deja Vu_

- mirage -

Ed was grabbing at Hohenhiem's shoulder and speaking, but Ed's voice sounded miles away.

"Hohenheim!" Ed cried, shaking Hohenheim's top half. "You! You!" Ed looked to the car looming over them with its engine still churning. "What the hell were you doing!" Ed screamed. "Didn't you see him! There was someone in the damn road!"

The driver door opened, and a tall man climbed out looking frantic. There was nothing special about his dress, and he wore the traditional browns and blacks of the German man's attire. Upon his head was a black Derby hat, and he ripped it off and hugged it to his chest looking scared. "Are you all right!" the man asked, leaving the driver's door open and running to Ed's side. "I didn't see him!" The man was tall, lanky, and blonde. From his talking mouth dangled a cigarette, and Ed stared up at the familiar face of an Amestris friend. There was no mistaking it. This was Jean Havoc, and he was smoking, even in this world. "I tried to stop! You saw me try to stop!" Havoc tossed an arm towards his car in his defense.

Ed's mouth slipped open in shock, and for a moment he forgot where he was and what was happening. Havoc came as forcefully as Mustang, and his presence felt dream like. The change in clothing, and slight change in accent gave the sense that Havoc was simply standing on the stage of a play, and any moment would break into his cocky military smile and solute.

Ed was mute with the assault of Havoc's sudden presence, and his silence agitated Havoc further. "Kid, you know I tried to stop! How injured is he?" Havoc pointed at Hohenheim's tossed body. "Do you need a ride some where?" Havoc grabbed his hat with both hands, crumbling it into a rag in his panic.

Hohenheim could see a blonde German man standing over him and talking to Ed. Faintly, he called Ed's name. His entire right side was burning and his lungs felt too tired to continue basic breathing.

"How could you not see him!" Ed yelled, suddenly coming to with his fear in an angry form of aggression. "He was right in the middle of the!" Hohenheim raised his hand the slightest bit and Ed silenced and looked down. Hohenheim wanted to tell Ed where his wallet was, where they were, and where they needed to go. He wanted to remind the boy to stay out of the snow and to eat a solid lunch with meat and bread, but he was becoming too tired to remember his name.

"Edward…my pocket…"

Looking terrified Ed watched Hohenheim's eyes roll back before looking at the man's coat. _What pocket?_ About them the cars were honking in protest. Havoc's was consuming their entire lane and much of the second twisted at an odd angle with snow kicked about. Suddenly Ed was abandoned in Germany, without knowing anything, and without knowing anyone. An overwhelming sense of isolating desertion swept Ed's body and his throat tightened just as bile swam up the back.

"He passed out?" Havoc asked, stilling hugging his hat.

Ed was silent. He was trying to decide what to do, and where to go. He didn't know where he was. They seemed to be in a different city that was, the way all unidentifiable cities were, just the same as the last. Not knowing how fast blimps went, or how big Germany was, Ed couldn't be certain they were even still in the same country. Feeling pathetic, and frightened in a way he would never admit, he lifted his gaze to Havoc. Havoc looked confused with his lack of movement, and was staring down at him with a befuddled expression.

"Help me move him," Ed said, keeping a flat demanding tone. He didn't know if this world had police, or if he had rights that would now protect him, or where doctors were kept, or if Hohenheim could ever even become injured enough he'd need a human doctor. However, what he did know, was that he felt Havoc owed him something for running the good for nothing old man down, and he was going to get what was coming to him. "I need to get him out of the snow."

Havoc slipped his hat back on and helped Ed heft up Hohenheim's unconscious body.

For Hohenheim the entire world had slid away from him without any fight, and then suddenly, it was coming back just as fast. With returning sound, and the sensation of heat, he struggled to open his eyes. There was white above him and what he thought first was the winter sky, he realized was the dull base paint of a ceiling. He was no longer outside, he was in a small bedroom inside the first of two twin beds, and he had been peeled out of his coat.

He felt extremely fatigued, and he lifted his head slowly and looked down at himself. His shirt had been opened and ice as well as a few rags were on his side. He could feel the dull ache even with the ice, and he was curious as to what type of bruising might show. Unlike in Amestris, Europe, or better put, this world, had provided him with slow, but steady strength. He healed quickly, and already, with just his first breath, he could feel the fresh composure of two ribs. They must have been broken, but now already were not. His flesh felt cool and significantly clean because it was reforming. His cells were realigning and bonding to correct the damage. In many ways, the most burdensome thing which would come from the accident would be the dirt to his hair and clothes.

Hohenheim gave his fingers a testing wiggle. He suspected he had not been out long, because he was on top of the bed covers rather than inside them. To the right, a curtain window had the white glow of a noonday hour, and it was right to assume he had lost maybe an hour. It was likely they were still in Kempton, as Ed should have chosen the first available option to himself, knowing nothing about his surroundings. From where he laid the sounds of the street were still present, and they were ear level, so he knew them to be on the first floor. This was curious, and Hohenheim glanced about the room with greater inquiry. First floor room and board, so close to the street, implied a house and not an apartment, and he took new interest in the room. With Kempton being a domestically small location, it was unlikely Ed should have run into individuals with the finances to own a house as the result of a business trade, and not that of practical farming. While he was aware Kempton had winter attractions, and had one or two of what could be considered resort locations, the occupants with money would more appropriately be found in Kempton's hotels as they enjoyed their stay, and not in residential dwellings. For this reason, several things inside the small room stood out at once.

The furnishing was simple, that of a common German. Wooden beds, end table, dresser, and writing desk, but the décor and accessories were unmatched. There was the simple and bland lamp, but the small fancy and expensive clock upon the dresser. The walls were bare, but the desk held a silver flask, several well made leather bound books, and a lock box sitting proudly on silver feet with gold engraved detail about the key hole. The goods within the room were that of a fine gentleman, but the dwelling encasing it all, was that of the practical hard working class. Hohenheim felt this at odds, it gave the ring of a thief, or at the very lest, one with not entirely ethical business dealings.

"You know exactly what I am talking about." A voice drifted in from the open bedroom doorway. "You're just denying it." The voice sounded happy, conversationally teasing. "And what for? I am being honest with you." Hohenheim lifted his arm a few inches and replaced it. His body was not yet ready to move. He closed his eyes with exhaustion and listened to the sounds of the other room. "There's nothing wrong with it. It can be our little secret." There was the soft clank of a dish on a counter top, before heavy male footsteps approaching the room.

A tall blonde man wearing brown slacks and suspenders over a white dress shirt appeared holding a rag. He was slightly over six feet, very lanky, and with a puff of blond hair sprouting out from his forehead. "You know what I am talking about," Havoc said, entering the room and turning back to speak into the doorway. "…don't you?"

"That's not what this is about," Ed answered from the other room.

Havoc cocked a comfortable well knowing smile and skeptically spoke a sarcastic, "Oh?"

Ed's tone didn't change. It was flat, and fact based. "I am spoken for."

Havoc lifted his hands in a mocking gesture and fanned them outward. "Then where is he?"

Hohenheim opened one eye just enough it would not be noticeable. It was obvious he was coming to in the middle of something, and it seemed something he didn't understand. Part of him, a part becoming nervous with the curt jesting of the German man's voice, felt it best to see where this was going.

Ed entered the room and stopped at the foot of Hohenheim's bed with a heavy sigh. He was no longer wearing his outerwear, and slid his hands into his pockets thoughtfully. Hohenheim could see Ed critically analyzing his situation, and reminded himself to apologize to Ed for all of this later. Ed still looked presentable, but his body had a cold misting of perspiration that caused Hohenheim guilt. Be it the stress of the new situation, or perhaps the strain of having to move a much larger and unconscious person, Ed did not have the resources of a healthy person, and was depleting what bit he had stored up before their travel from Munich. Feeling foolishly annoyed Hohenheim had to admit it had not occurred to him something might happen to him and strand Ed temporarily on his own. He had been independent for so long, planning for dependency was difficult.

Ed looked mildly annoyed with his position and the silence in the room. Havoc had not taken his eyes off Ed, and was staring purposely so Ed would answer him. "Well?" Havoc asked.

Ed looked tired. His clothing cast him as thin and willowy, and somehow Ed's braid was becoming messy again.

"You're not used to talking about it," Havoc said, sounding certain, and almost sympathetic. Ed ignored this. His gaze was absently considering the side of Hohenheim's bed, as if lost in thought. "I understand, I am not trying to pry, but you realize it looks as it does from my perspective, that he should be here." With these words Ed's brow tightened, as if hearing this was painful. "Why isn't he?" Hohenheim could see, what looked to be painful reality seeping into Ed's face, and he suddenly felt the need to stand up and intervene. Ed's eyes dropped to the floor, almost with shame, and Havoc noticed this at once. "If he's not here, than you belong to no one," Havoc said quickly, sounding more intrigued with this than anything else. "You need to come to terms with it." Havoc walked quickly to Ed's side and looked down at him. Ed took his hands from his pockets with the sudden advance but didn't move. "You need to face facts." Havoc leaned closer, his body now socially inappropriate and closing what little space was left between Ed's shorter form and his own. "He's breaking it off." Havoc hooked a finger beneath Ed's chin. "He's _not _interested." Ed looked powerless hearing this. There was something of wild denial and overwhelming sadness breaking out in Ed's face, and Havoc could see it just as plainly as Hohenheim. "What a fool," Havoc whispered, closing the distance between them. In the slow consensual speed of romance, he planted a chaste kiss on Edward's motionless lips.

Hohenheim watched the kiss with a parental anger stirring. Edward did not look comfortable the way one would invite such advances, but like a grade school child being bullied by someone larger, and remaining passively stoic. "He is a fool to leave you," Havoc whispered, lowering the hand he had beneath Ed's chin to pet down Ed's chest. "I wouldn't have left you."

Edward didn't move and kept his apathetic expression. "Thank you for putting us up," Ed said, sounding only mildly annoyed. "But as soon as he comes to we're leaving."

Havoc lifted his eyes to Ed's with a bit of shock and Ed leveled his gaze. It said, _understand what I am saying?_ Ed had found and chosen the best route to take in this situation, and it was calm indifference. We weren't starting a fight, and we weren't participating in one. We were taking the old man and getting the hell out of here. Germany was terrible.

Havoc dropped his hand to his side with insult. He gave Ed a quick scrutinizing glance from head to toe with bitter resentment. "Have you any money to pay for his doctor?" he spat, voice quickly going sour.

Hohenheim felt a sense of exasperation Ed called a doctor for him. He couldn't blame the boy, it was common in Amestris to call for doctors, but it was not common here in Germany.

"I wouldn't have called else wise," Ed said, reaching into his back pocket. Ed's hand slid in for Hohenheim's wallet and grasped air. For a moment he looked surprised before feeding his hand into his front right pocket, and then his left.

"What's the matter?" Havoc asked. With confusion Ed turned his front pockets inside out. "Did you lose it?" Havoc asked, and it was the way he pronounced the word lose, dragging it out sardonically_,_ which explained exactly what happened. _Ed no longer had the wallet, because someone had taken it._

Instantly Ed's head snapped up with accusing rage. He dropped the white sails of his pocket interiors and jumped at Havoc. It was an action of immediate fury, like a pouncing cougar. Ed threw himself forward and Hohenheim was so startled, he bolted up before he could stop himself. He managed only three inches, and then a sudden flare in his side knocked him flat. His ribs weren't the only things which were damaged, his organs were. They were not fully repaired and screamed with his movement as if a few of them had been broken into hunks and were in the process of sewing themselves back together.

Neither Ed, nor Germany's Havoc, noticed Hohenheim's movement. For the moment they were completely preoccupied. Ed threw a left hook, knocking Havoc back, and went to grab the man in a choke hold. Had Ed been healthy, he might have succeeded, but Havoc had the advantage of speed. He dodged and threw a harsh, but still much pulled, blow at Ed's stomach. Ed buckled critically, and Havoc shoved him back.

"Get off me!" Havoc snapped. His shove threw Ed into the writing desk, and Ed's lower back smacked the side of the table before Ed grabbed it to stabilize himself. The impact was extreme, Ed collided with the force of a wrecking ball tossing him aside, and Havoc was not done. He took one great step, stomping in front of Ed's recovering body and slapped Ed's face with so much force the sound went off like a fire cracker and Hohenheim was certain Ed would topple over.

Havoc scolded Ed mercilessly, and said "Starting something in your condition…" Ed pawed at the side of the desk to stay upright when his jaw was thrown to the side with enough force it tried to take the rest of his body with it. "You're sweating so hard I am surprised you can stand." Havoc grabbed Ed's lapels and jerked him forward, correcting his stance with cruel force. "Quite an arrogant nuisance you are, thinking you can take on someone like me while so ill. What's wrong with you?" Havoc sounded only mildly interested in the disease. "It's obviously not contagious or the old man would be sick as well, but I am really not certain you can leave in your condition." This was a threat, and it wasn't lost on any of them. "Or while you owe me money."

Ed struggled to regain his breath while Havoc was speaking. "Oh?" Ed rasped, lifting a hand and wiping at his mouth. Ed raised his gaze in a quick jump of his pupils. "Imagine that situation," Ed taunted sarcastically. He was still breathing heavily from the sudden exertion and stress. The tension in the room was mounting quickly. Hohenheim could sense the German man's intent to move. It was a clear hungry desire wafting toward Ed's building aggression. "Since I seemed to have…misplaced my wallet," Ed said, giving his lips a lick with his cheek growing a fat red swell. "…I wonder what I can do to pay?" Havoc snorted as if he were insulted, but the gaze in his eyes said otherwise. He was the one who initiated the kiss, and he was the only one who wanted it. "Perhaps…you have something in mind?" Ed said, picking himself up from the slumped way he was leaning into the desk and offering a vicious little smile. _It was clear someone had something in mind._

"I don't," Havoc said angrily. It was an obvious lie, and Ed fell silent. He let the charade hang in the air, dangling between them with Havoc's discomfort building. Hohenheim understood the German man wanted something, and while the man's desire was building with prickling unease, Ed was entirely confident.

Ed's eyes were sinking into a dark cold solidarity of unwavering hate, and the German was disturbed. He seemed drawn to Ed with his quiet hungry stare, but also repulsed by him in some way. As if the Amestris inside Ed warned the man of danger the same way this German Havoc made Ed sick with deep loathing.

Havoc sniffed, tipping his chin up the smallest fraction of an inch. He was not giving up. He felt more than capable against Ed as an opponent, and with his desire clear, he was refusing to do any of the work._ Havoc_ _was going to get his way, the way he wanted it_. "You're going to have to think of something," he said, lowering his voice.

Ed's eyes were blackened with disgust, but his facial expression remained calm. "I don't have any ideas either, isn't that funny?" Ed asked, lifting the automail to his collar and fiddling with the top button. "I simply have…" Ed popped the first button and slid his hand down to the second. "…no idea…" Ed popped the second and third button and spread the collar quickly before continuing. "…what I can do…" Ed's automail was slipping through his buttons and Hohenheim was scared with Ed's actions and the wide smile spreading up Havoc's face. "…to repay such a…serious…" The fourth and fifth button. "…serious…" Sixth and seventh. "…favor."

Ed was leaning on the writing desk the way Hohenheim was familiar with Ed leaning against any piece of furniture near him to ease the weight of his body. With Ed's shirt almost entirely open, Hohenheim suddenly noticed Ed's flesh hand. It had crawled along the top of the writing desk behind Ed's back and was curling tightly around the long and sharp letter opener.

"You know damn well what you can do," Havoc said, choking out his words in a single breath of intense arousal. The man dove at Ed's body, wrapping both arms around Ed and crushing Ed to his frame.

Ed shook, broken entirely from his concentration and assaulted with surprise Havoc possessed such speed and strength. Ed dropped the letter opener and brought both hands to Havoc's chest trying to separate them. "Yes," Havoc whispered, crushing his lips to Ed's. Ed balled a handful of Havoc's shirt and tried to squirm free, but Havoc grabbed Ed's head, fisting his hair, and held him in place.

With both boys distracted Hohenheim tested lifting his right arm and then his left. He didn't want them to notice him, but he wanted to make sure his body would work. With this man eating into Ed's face as if it were a pie, he tested his left leg and then his right before Ed managed to shove Havoc off. They jerked apart, both panting.

"What the fuck!" Ed snarled, emptying and filling his lungs as if he'd run miles. Havoc was undisturbed and grabbed Ed's shirt and untucked it from his pants in one yank. "Slow down!" Ed cried, reaching back for the letter opener with a bit of fright.

Havoc slid his hands up Ed's chest and began frantically unbuttoning Ed's exposed underwear. "You're amazing," Havoc whispered, voice urgent and uncontrolled. "I am sure you'll pay suitably."

Ed waved his hand across the writing desk in search of the letter opener. He knocked over the books, and smacked the lock box aside. With Havoc's groping Ed's expression was easily a grimace of severe discomfort, but the man didn't care. With rest, their travel to Kempton had been tiresome, but not overly so on Ed's body. He had regained the good color and coordination he was suddenly loosing. Havoc's attack was like a leach, exhausting Ed's strength rapidly. With adrenaline Ed's breath was short and panicky, and the state of heightened alert he was being forced into, and forced to operate within, was dwindling him back into illness. Hohenheim could see a blooming fever creeping into Ed's cheeks.

"Your skin is beautiful," Havoc said, ripping Ed's underwear open and pressing his face to Ed's chest. Ed was beginning to sweat heavily, and it was giving his skin a pale waxy appearance. Havoc didn't notice Ed's falling condition, and the force of his excitement shoved Ed sloppily to the right.

Ed used both hands to stabilize himself, and latched onto the writing desk for support. About its surface was a mess of papers and personal belongings. The letter opener, which was in easy sight minutes ago, was buried.

When Ed started this game he thought he could control it, but German Havoc seemed to be lustfully unpredictable, and his strength was immense. In Amestris Havoc was a soldier, and had a soldier's strength and skill. As a competing alchemist, this meant little to Ed, but here in Germany, Havoc's capable body brought real threat. With little strength to push Havoc off, Ed felt a rush of fear he had bitten off more than he could chew.

"What an absolute fool he is," Havoc said, speaking into Ed's stomach while basking in the feel of the boy's skin. "Such luck I am having. Finders-keepers, isn't that what they say?" Havoc lifted his face from Ed's torso. "I want you to show yourself to me." Ed's eyebrows shot up with disbelief. _Amestris Havoc loved women more than anything._ "I want to see you," he said impatiently.

"O-Okay," Ed croaked, trying to twist his body away from the pressure pinching him against the desk. He just needed a moment to get his bearings, or manage a stable grip on the table. Havoc was insistent and dropped his hands to the button of Ed's pants. "All right!" Ed cried, pressing a palm to Havoc's face and pushing it away. "Ease up!"

Havoc jerked erect angrily, and his height left him towering over Ed's sick body. "You started this." His voice was unpitying. He grabbed Ed's jaw in a fierce grip and jerked Ed's face up to his. "You started it, and you'll finish it." Havoc descended on the side of Ed's face, and kissed sloppily upward towards his temple. Ed broke into a yawn of disgust and tried to wiggle free. Pinned tight, the action gave the appearance of a shuffling dance, and Havoc laughed. "Relax, and enjoy it." Havoc dropped his hand to the crotch of Ed's pants and captured Ed in a tight grip.

The sudden invasion sent a fierce shudder upward through Ed's body, snapped his eyes open, and he began the fast and controlled breathing of a bull about to charge. For a moment Ed's vision blurred, and the lamp in the room seemed to grow an intense light.

"I am going to put you in my mouth," Havoc whispered, chuckling into Ed's neck between his kisses. "I'll suck you until you scream."

Ed saw the lamp blow outward with light, and everything became white when he heard this. Frantically, he tossed his hand behind him and slapped things off the desk until his grasp locked around the long silver letter opener. It had a sterling silver weighted handle with elegant detail. The blade was that of an elongated triangle, extremely thin with a piercing tip. Ed curled his fingers around it and drew it up in an aggressive fist grip. It was a military move if Hohenheim had ever seen one. With the automail, Ed grabbed Havoc's hair and jerked his grinning face up. In one swift, tightly controlled, and dangerous movement, Ed leveled the knife directly in front of Havoc's left eye and stabbed it forward. It was a plunging motion, as if Ed were preparing to stab it straight through Havoc's head. Instead, Ed stopped precisely one inch away from Havoc's white bulging sclera and left the blade hovering.

"Get it," Ed seethed. His lips were curled back from his clenched teeth, and he was panting through them with fury. "And don't make me tell you what it is I want."

With the knife arriving with the precision of a diamond before his pupil Havoc froze with immediate shock. It stalled him suddenly, but quickly began wearing off. He was unwilling to relinquish his control without a fight. "What are you going to do with that?" Havoc asked, sounding nervous.

"I will stab this through your fucking eye and rip it out like a peach pit if you don't drop my dick this second," Ed hissed. In agonizing suspense Hohenheim was gripping the bed sheets with both hands and he didn't see any movement, but Ed gave a fast and fleeting grin of disgust. "Good," Ed whispered.

"Are you seriously planning to fight me off with a letter opener?" Havoc asked softly, keeping an iniquitous tone even while beginning to sweat. "Hm? Think that can even cut a man?"

Ed smiled and chuckled a dangerous giggle Hohenheim had never heard. "Oh, I think it will work just fine," Ed teased. "I'll pluck your eye like a toothpick into a fat grape. And while you're screaming and grabbing at the bloody hole leaking down your face, I'll lick it from top to bottom. I'll suck the cornea off like a wet onion." Ed moved the knife just a hair closer and Havoc gasped a sloppy hitch of breath. "And if I like the taste," Ed continued, "your right eye can watch me chew the left like a nice hard boiled egg."

Hohenheim could see the storming fury in Havoc's face. Havoc jerked cautiously in Ed's hold, testing Ed's strength like a beast trying to break free. He wasn't ready to be beaten so easily, and narrowed his gaze at Ed with vengeful commitment. "You little shit."

"Get it!" Ed barked. The order was flat, and proclaimed loudly. Ed suddenly raised his voice into a hard commanding tone and it shot through the room like a bullet. He shoved Havoc back by the head and with the man rising to a full stand Hohenheim had a chance to look at them both.

Havoc was sweating heavily. Lust was still hot in his eyes, but now there was anger and cautious fury brooding. Ed was a mess, with his shirt and underwear ripped open and his body glistening like a china doll from all the exertion. His hair had been pulled from the braid in fistfuls and the side of his face looked stung by hornets. "Go." Ed extended his arm to keep the knife inches from Havoc, and he gave it a sharp jab toward the doorway with his order. "Get." Ed spoke like he would to a dog and Havoc left into the hall with Ed following.

Hohenheim felt certain it was time to leave, and with both boys gone forced himself to sit up. It was a slow and painful process. The rags and ice toppled into his lap and his liver cried out in protest with the crunch of his body. His ribs had recovered, but he suspected his false ribs had broken inward or possibly downward into his liver, and that was what had caused the delay in his healing. The liver was not an organ he wanted to rush into health, but with the volatile situation in front of him, he felt compelled to help. Ed seemed to be holding his own, but not without serious injury to his recovery.

Moving gently Hohenheim slid one leg off the bed before the other while rocking his neck to either side. He stretched it, and cracked it once before rolling his shoulders. He wanted to be able to stand quickly and look strong. Their new friend did not seem to have the best intentions in mind, and if they could leave without violence he would.

"Now drop it," Havoc spoke, loud enough to be heard even from the bedroom. Since the boys had left there had been no conversation and Hohenheim looked toward the doorway with this clear phrase. A moment later a slender metal object dropped to the floor and clattered. "I know how to use it and I will." Hohenheim glanced about the bedroom for a weapon. Things did not seem to be going well. "I am no longer in the best of moods, so get your shirt off." There was a brief rustling sound. "To the bedroom." Footsteps began approaching and Hohenheim paused, in a moment of thought where he stood. He could remain standing, and begin the confrontation right away, or he could resume his useless appearance, and take an opportune time.

Hohenheim recognized the lamp as his easiest weapon and with footsteps returning he slid back onto the bed and closed his eyes.

Ed appeared in the doorway with his shirt missing and his underwear unbuttoned into his pants. He paused for a moment as Havoc closed in behind him and then stepped in. Havoc looked smug carrying a wallet in one hand and a small gun in the other. Hohenheim felt himself stiffen on sight of the weapon, and it was clear Ed was responding to it as well.

Havoc gestured to the second empty bed with the gun. "Get up to the bed."

Ed's hands were balled into fists and he looked over his shoulder to Havoc and glared at the man. "Why?" Ed asked. His voice was low and carried a tone of intense fury and accusation. His anger was extreme. For the moment Ed was obeying only with calm controlled movements. It was a reluctant surrender built on the committed promise to return with the first available opportunity. The moment the gun was lowered, or the moment it could be taken, Ed was going to explode, and Hohenheim felt certain, it would be with a force greater than anything he'd ever seen.

A thin smile scribbled up Havoc's face before he gave a laugh which was more a grunt of air than a sound. "Get up," Havoc cocked the gun, "to the bed."

Ed stepped to the second twin bed and stared at it with his hands fists at his sides. Unlike the first wooden bed, this one was a strong wrought iron with a waist high foot board. Practically flush against it Ed was very close to Hohenheim, and Hohenheim looked at his son. He could see Ed's illness streaked across Ed's face. Ed's cheeks were hot, his body was sweating, and with the situation Ed looked ready to vomit.

With Ed's obedience Havoc decocked the gun and seemed pleased. "Take off your pants."

Ed closed his eyes slowly and muttered something so quietly only his lips appeared to move.

"There is someone in the room with us," Ed said angrily.

"I like spectators." Havoc was happy.

Ed jerked around with startled outrage. "That's my father!" Ed gestured in a wild angry swing of his palm towards Hohenheim.

Havoc was even happier, and mockingly said, "And I wouldn't care if it was your mother." A new rage was born in Ed when Trisha was mentioned. He tipped his face down and it darkened like that of a rabid animal. "Now get them off."

Ed answered easily, and with non negotiable confidence. "No."

Havoc's smiled dropped. "Get them off."

"I said no," Ed snapped. "I am not undressing, and we're not doing whatever you think we're doing. I am going to get the old man I brought, and I am leaving now." Ed's voice was powerful. "You are done." It was the voice of the state alchemist who only had to clap his hands to attack someone. In Amestris Ed had a research budget, a travel budget, and impressive income for all he knew and could do. At the age most boys were reading comics, Ed had a career most developed men envied. He did not sound like the German commoner he looked like. Although his clothes were standard, and his accent was poor, Edward's spirit was of higher society, and carried with it the demands of well earned entitlement. Without landing a single insult, he was spitting on the blonde German thief, and the man could hear it.

"Maybe you've forgotten I am the one with the gun!" Havoc snapped, advancing in a fast careless step of blinding anger. He jerked his arm up and thrust the barrel into Ed's forehead between Ed's eyes. "I'll give the orders around here," Havoc sneered. "And I won't shoot to kill you." Havoc smiled. "I'll shoot you in the thigh and you can bleed down your leg while we do this." Havoc cocked the gun. "Now turn around, and take off your pants." Ed didn't move, and Havoc gave this only a few seconds before dropping the gun to aim at Ed's right thigh.

With the threat to the flesh leg, Ed lifted a flat palm in a surrendering motion and turned around. He moved slowly, deliberately taking his time, and Hohenheim could see Ed's eyes darting in rapid thought once he faced the bed again. Ed brought his hands to his pants and began to unfasten them with the trembling procrastination of a man tying his own noose.

"Good boy," Havoc mocked, decocking the gun again.

Becoming frantic for a way out Ed threw his gaze around the room with flighty desperation. Hohenheim opened his own and let them meet. His heart had pulsed, in a beat twice that in strength, when he saw the cocked gun peg Ed in the head. He was ready for them to make their move, and Ed froze in a moment of shock when their gaze locked.

With immediate understanding Hohenheim was conscious Ed's eyes widened. His expression broke into a dull catatonic stare of disbelief, before his brow knit with angry panic. Hohenheim heard Ed's thoughts clearly. _Get up asshole! Stop laying there and help me!_

"Hey!" Havoc snapped. The sound of him was loud and sudden. Ed's frame gave a quick shudder in surprise. "Stop stalling and get them off now."

Hesitantly Ed brought his hands to his fly and began unzipping it. He felt subconscious with Hohenheim awake, but more certain he might see his way out of this. After all, it wouldn't be like the old man to just lay there and let him get beat up.

Havoc calmed with Ed obeying him, and spoke with a tone of new curiosity. "Has your lover done this to you before?"

Ed unzipped his fly and paused. "Made me strip at gun point?" Ed asked sarcastically. "No, you're the first."

Havoc lifted the gun and hit Ed harshly in the back of the head with the butt of it. "You know what I am talking about," Havoc said angrily.

Ed's shoulders rose like an offended cat and he hissed with the sting of the blow. He reached back and gave the hot throb a quick rub. Ironically, it made the lamp's lighting seem more tolerable, and helped things come into focus.

"Were you on the bottom?" Havoc asked. Ed's squeezed his eyes tightly closed. _He wasn't going to talk about something so private. _Not to this man with a gun, and certainly not with Hohenheim listening. He finished opening his pants and hung onto them when they slipped an inch off his waist. "Were you?" Havoc was insistent, and used the gun barrel to land a demanding jab to the back of Ed's head. Ed let his pants go and they dropped to his ankles leaving him in his half unbuttoned underwear. "I couldn't imagine you'd be on the top."

Ed forced an optimistic tone full of repugnant anger and said, "Well, they say good things come in small packages." Havoc smiled. He stepped up quickly and wrapped a loving arm about Ed's chest to hug the boy. He kept the gun to Ed's temple.

"I am only asking to be easy on you," Havoc whispered, taking a moment to sniff Ed's hair with appreciation. "You know, this doesn't have to be like this for you." Ed fixed his gaze on the wall ahead of him and revealed nothing. He kept himself limp and pliable as Havoc squeezed him. "I don't want to hurt you, and I don't want to scare you either."

"How generous," Ed said flatly.

"I would love to hold you close. I want to give you the choice, you understand?" _German Havoc was insane._ "You can cooperate, and I'll be gentle." Havoc was groping Ed's chest. "But if you want, you can just bend over, and we can do it like that too." Havoc slid his hand to Ed's right nipple and pinched it.

Ed cried out a sound of overcome surprise and jerked in Havoc's arms. The pinch felt incredibly invasive. He did not have his right nipple in Amestris, and the nerves were new and extremely fresh. Ed winced with Havoc's grip, overcome with the sensation it caused. After he demanded he be fit with automail, Pinako cut his nipple off during surgery and the metal of the automail port stretched over half the scar. Ed remembered Pinako's voice taunting him during his therapy directly after the arm was added. Each automail port was like a ball and chain and for weeks it was hard just to shift his weight. _I cut that nipple right off you,_ she had said, holding him upright and forcing him to stand, _and I'll cut off more if you don't make that leg work Ed!_

The touch was embarrassing, and Ed felt himself blush.

"Oh, so sensitive!" Havoc laughed, pinching it again.

Hohenheim reached for the lamp. The blonde German was touching his son in a way that was not only inappropriate and upsetting to him, but seemed to be gravely upsetting Ed. Havoc wouldn't leave Ed's right nipple alone, and Ed was panting out fast startled breaths. The touch felt so deliberately insensitive Ed felt as if Havoc were doing something incredibly private to him and was starting to squirm.

"Come on," Havoc whispered, plucking playfully at Ed's nipple. "We can make it nice."

"You make me sick," Ed confessed. "You make me fucking sick."

Havoc's interest in foreplay erased with Ed's tone, and with Ed unsuspecting, Havoc stepped back and planted a hand on the back of Ed's head doubling him over. Unprepared Ed's face hit the bed harshly. The iron frame took on the inconvenience of doubling over a high garden fence, and Ed lost the power of his legs without the ability to fully bend his knees or drop his weight into them. Viciously he began squirming. "Stay still!" Havoc jammed the gun barrel to the back of Ed's head, but Ed didn't care. Bent over in his underwear, Ed's vision had gone milky, and the light in the room was overwhelmingly bright. He understood little more than the need to get free at any cost, and reached back and grabbed at Havoc's hair. Havoc cried out into his jaw when Ed fisted it and yanked out whatever he could. "Get your hands down!"

"What do you fucking thing you're doing!" Ed screamed, jerking an elbow back into Havoc's chest. Havoc broke out coughing. "I'll fucking kill you!" Ed lifted a leg to kick, but Havoc stamped a foot down on the pants between Ed's ankles and trapped his legs.

"Yeah, I'll beat you up nice and pretty when I am done, so don't you worry about it," Havoc said, unzipping his fly. "Now get your hands down." Havoc secured a grip on the back of Ed's head, and kept Ed's face smashed to the bed quilt.

"Get your hands off me!" Ed cried, struggling.

"I mean it! You think your feeble wiggling means anything to me?" Havoc boasted.

"Fuck you!" Ed raised his voice. "I said, get off me!"

"Listen to this mouth." Havoc laughed. "I'll have to give you something to keep you quiet."

Hohenheim stood up. The moment Havoc pushed Ed into a position that truly scared the boy, he reached for the lamp. With the struggling he stood up in a swift even raise from the bed, stepped behind the German man, and smashed it over his skull. It was a powerful swing, and the lamp shattered in a violent explosion as if Havoc's skull was a bullet.

Havoc's head seemed to bounce to the side, as if his neck were made of rubber and stretched with the force of it. Then it snapped back, and out cold, Havoc fell forward like a dummy and blanketed Ed with his dead body weight.

Ed flailed when Havoc came down on top of him. He threw a vicious elbow into the man's face and started screaming. "Get the fuck off me! I'll break your fucking face!"

Ed's wild tone made Hohenheim panic, and he grabbed Ed's shoulders, but Ed didn't recognize his touch. "Edward," he said, tightening his grasp. "It's me. Don't move, there is glass on you son."

Ed brought his hands to the bed and tried to push himself up. His bare palm missed jagged shards of glass by only centimeters. "Get me up!" Ed cried. Havoc's weight was too much. "Get him off of me!"

Hohenheim laid his hand over Ed's to calm him. "Ed, stay still," he said, putting as much reassurance into his voice as he could. "There is glass on you. Let me clean you off, and then you can get up." Ed stopped struggling, but his wild breathing didn't subside. He was heaving as if he'd fought for his life, and in some ways that was what it felt like.

Quickly Hohenheim tossed the visible shards of glass from Ed's shoulders and hair. The lamp was in coined sized pieces in all directions. The bed was littered with them, and once Ed's shoulders were safe, Hohenheim shoved Havoc haphazardly to the side. Ed curled his hands over his head when he felt Havoc's body moving, and for a moment Hohenheim felt he was lifting a blanket. Havoc's body gave way and revealed a view of Ed that shocked him.

Ed was thin as a rail, and bent stomach down clutching his head and shaking, looked more vulnerable than Hohenheim could stand. He grabbed Ed's shoulders and pulled him up with the intent to protect Ed from Havoc and the entire world. "Easy Edward," Hohenheim whispered.

Ed staggered to his feet, and as soon as he knew he could move became wild again. He looked madly for Havoc's body; fearful Havoc would come to and attack. Ed raked his hands over his face and up into his hair, puffing his bangs out with static caused by the automail. He was hysterical though entirely mute. There was nothing but the hyperventilating asthmatic wheeze of his panicked breath, and the shaking of his body. He gave Havoc an investigatory kick, and when Havoc didn't move, Ed stepped back and looked down at the pants pooled about his ankles. He was swaying unsteadily, and Hohenheim grabbed Ed's shoulders to steady him just as the right sleeve of his underwear slipped down to his bicep.

"Ed," Hohenheim said firmly, bending down to Ed's face. He whispered, "You're all right now." The urgency he had to explain this to Ed, came from the urgency he had to believe it was true. _Yes, Ed was safe. He was not hurt, he was safe._ Hohenheim grabbed Ed, and hugged Ed to his chest. "You're safe now." He pressed his face into Ed's hair and with the fever and Ed's sweating; Ed's natural smell was strong. Hohenheim took a deep breath of his son, and laid a hand in the blonde color that came from his blood. "You're okay."

Ed had been silent, in a state of adrenaline ridden pandemonium that left no ability for speech, until the hug. Then Ed responded fiercely, and latched onto Hohenheim with desperation. "_I want to go!_" Ed screamed, trembling viciously. His body was wet with fresh sweat, and although his grip on Hohenheim was uncertain, it was tight. "I want to go dad, I want to go."

Hohenheim felt every muscle inside him lock up when for the first time in years he heard that small familiar word drop from Ed's mouth.

D-A-D

It clarified things like the last piece of a puzzle. It was the simplicity, but also the complexity, of something well known becoming something more. It was Hydrogen bonding easily with Oxygen to make water in both words, and simultaneously allowing something as magical as the base pair bonding for the double helical structure of DNA. Suddenly, the parental desires he had been struggling with and trying to subdue for Edward's dignity, were right, and it became okay for Edward to want them and hate them at the same time.

Hohenheim paused in this moment, feeling as if it would end before he knew it, and also that it never would. It was as if he had stepped in something too thick to step directly out of. Life was different this way. Life was different now with Ed. It was not himself, traveling and living with only himself to care and plan for. He had made another life with Trisha, and that life was a separate operating identity that cared for him, and which he cared deeply for.

Hohenheim tightened his grip on Ed, hugging the boy fiercely. "We shall," he whispered. He stepped away from Havoc's body, and took Ed with him. He was unwilling to let Ed go with danger so close. It was startling to a frightening degree how easily he had gone down, and how thoroughly his unconsciousness had abandoned Edward. In this world Ed could neither read nor write, he had no money, no idea where he was, and his health was a wildly inconsistent enemy for them both.

Ed was in shambles and wheezing out breaths as if in the heat of an asthma attack. His hair had become a tangle of strings feeding into a messy braid. His shaking was visible, rattling him constantly, and with his underwear pulled off his shoulders and opened, Ed looked appropriately like each piece of him was falling apart.

Hohenheim coaxed Ed to sit at the foot of the bed and felt Ed's burning forehead. Inside he also felt dizzy and a bit nauseous, and it worried him. He had to pull himself together; he could not worry about his own injuries now. His liver held no consequence to Ed.

"Let's get you dressed," Hohenheim said, tugging Ed's underwear up his shoulders.

Ed lifted his gaze with his jaw hanging open and his breathing coming sloppily through his mouth. The right side of his face was still inflamed from the slap, and now along his forehead was a reddened looking rash from the scuff of the bed quilt grinding into his face. Against the pale color of Ed's face these abrasions were stark, but still held no contest to the dark circles Ed's eye sockets were becoming. They were growing ever worse, and made Ed look like a corpse.

Ed licked his lips and rasped a single question. "How long…were you awake?"

Hohenheim buttoned Ed's underwear quickly. "I came to slowly, and it was difficult to move."

Ed kept a silent stare and Hohenheim felt some guilt for stretching the truth but Ed's expression held no trace of suspicion only obedience.

"Are you hurt?" Ed asked, sounding exhausted. "Your ribs…looked broken."

Hohenheim laid his palm over Ed's last button. Ed's pure worry for something as strong as him was naïve, and it gave him remorse and humbling chagrin he only remembered from the farmhouse. Above all else, to think his angry bullheaded son, who seemed more likely to disown him, had actually been reduced to this.

"You put on your shirt; I am going to hail us a car."

Ed gave a sloppy nod and slid his downed sleeve up his shoulder. Quickly Hohenheim left the bedroom and found himself in a simple one bedroom flat. There was a single sitting area and kitchen to his right. He sought water from a visible pitcher and finished a large glass, before refilling it for Ed. On Havoc's counter was a single Semmelknodel breaded dumpling. It looked like a pale meatball in size and color. Hohenheim contemplated taking the food. It was not in his nature to rob from the people of either world, and he was just about to leave it with confidence he could buy something for Ed to eat when he noticed the long sterling silver letter opener laying on the kitchen floor. Against the linoleum, the knife was slender and gleamed with an eagerness to slice. Hohenheim bent down and picked it up. The weight was suitable. It was enough to jab into a man at full strength, and certainly enough to pluck into an eyeball like a grape.

Hohenheim pocketed the letter opener, then he took Ed's abandoned shirt, and the dumpling to the bedroom. Ed sat at the foot of the bed holding his head between his knees trying to stop his heavy breathing. He had corrected his underwear and fastened his pants, but his hair was still a mess.

Hohenheim approached and lowered the cup into Ed's line of sight. "Ed, drink this." Ed immediately pushed it away.

"I feel nauseous."

"Ed." Hohenheim returned the cup. "I know you don't feel like you're dehydrating, but I promise you that you are, and it's a very real threat here."

Ed pushed a hand up his forehead and into his damp hair. "My fever," he muttered, eyes drooping closed with exhaustion. "It's bad." Hohenheim rested his hand on Ed's forehead. It was blazing. "I can't see well." Ed took the cup with his hand shaking. Ed's grip was so unsteady the cup looked as if it were rattling, and Ed brought it to his mouth with the vibration enough to slosh water onto his fingers before he sipped. Ed only drank a few inches and then he set the cup to the floor and returned his palm to his face.

"Are you too nauseous to stand?" Hohenheim asked, considering how long he'd have to be gone to find a cab. He extended Ed's shirt and Ed took it eagerly.

"I just…want to sit here for a little bit," Ed said, sliding his shirt on slowly. Hohenheim waited patiently as Ed pulled it around himself, adjusted his collar, and began buttoning the front. Fully dressed he looked greatly improved, and Hohenheim extended the dumpling when Ed finished.

Ed looked at the food in Hohenheim's hand with curiosity and then with growing illness. "I don't want it," Ed said miserably.

Hohenheim ran his hand over Ed's automail shoulder checking to make sure everything was in place while pushing the dumping into Ed's flesh hand. Ed didn't shove the bread away although he did not cooperate. He was too tired to do either, and Hohenheim lifted Ed's hand to his mouth and Ed reluctantly nibbled the corner.

"I will hurry back."

"If he wakes up…" Ed trailed off, and dropped his arms to his knees with the dumpling slipping almost entirely from his grasp. "I'll take him out before he can stand." Ed lifted his gaze to Hohenheim, and Hohenheim considered this. "I know how," Ed said, voice weak but confident, and Edward seemed capable, at least in good health, of defending himself. Hohenheim didn't doubt Edward's ability to fight with skill that could be fatal, but it seemed unlike the boy to murder. "I can't defend myself," Ed said softly, sounding crushed with his own confession. "I can't defend myself like this." Ed dropped the dumpling and in a slow sorry point indicated himself with one slender finger. "I don't have a choice."

"He won't wake up," Hohenheim said firmly, turning for the door. He felt a need to rush, to hurry back before the man awoke, but he paused in the doorway just the same and looked at Ed's stark white face. "Don't kill him if he does Ed."

* * *

They were not, as Hohenheim found, on a main street, and he walked three blocks before emerging from cramped residential streets of little commercial automotive traffic before he could manage a cab. Kempten's traffic seemed unusual to him, with far too great a difference between the residents and tourists. He rode back to the German man's house in silence, and sitting outside the man's thrown together flat bundled in his coat and looking almost homeless, was Ed.

Hohenheim opened the back door of the cab so Edward could see him and beckoned. "Edward!"

Ed staggered to his feet and broke out coughing, but was coming in a sloppy jog. "Hey sir," the driver objected, sounding nervous. "He doesn't look very healthy." Edward in fact looked worse than Hohenheim remembered. Ed arrived with skin that shown white and clammy like that of dead squid, and his flesh hand clamped to his mouth to keep his coughs under control. With Ed in full sight the driver turned around in his seat with alarm. "He got the pneumonia? Or measles?" the man asked, pointing at Ed as he climbed in.

"Absolutely not, I assure you," Hohenheim said, keeping a kind conversational tone. He helped Ed into the cab quickly and closed the door with Ed sitting at his side. Currently their only option was taking this cap, and he intended on doing so.

"He sure as hell looks like he does!" the driver was reasonably frightened.

Ed lowered his hand from his mouth panting and looked utterly perplexed. Amestris did not have common diseases that spread as quickly and killed so mercilessly.

"What's a measle?" Ed rasped. Amestris also did not have measles.

"You know what he has?" Hohenheim asked, forcing a jovial tone. "A bit of tetanus." Hohenheim gestured the car drive forward, but the driver looked skeptical. Ed's eyes were barely open, and he leaned to the icy window of the cab and pressed his hot forehead to it. Hohenheim ignored this. "He's a few days in and still has a few to go I am afraid. You are right, quite right that tetanus is nasty, but not contagious. Now, how about a hotel? I need one closest to the East of the city."

The driver looked a bit shaken with this explanation and studied Ed's drunken appearance before slowly replacing his hands on the wheel. "Yeah," the man said softly, sounding unconvinced. "I know one."

* * *

The hotel to the East of the city was only twenty minutes from them, and it was a three story brick building with a lavish entrance. Out front in the crowd was a sign for the large science exposition on Special Relativity and Quantum Mechanics being held over the weekend and Hohenheim cursed their luck. If they were traveling for any other reason, and if Ed were in better health, he would have loved to bring the boy. Now however, the exposition was only clogging the city up with burdensome traffic.

With the cab along side the curb and their driver retrieving their bag, Ed tipped his head up to see the top of the building puffing large clouds of breath through his open jaw. "Why don't you leave me out here," Ed said, sounding sick. "While you get a room." Ed's mannerisms were that of a sleep deprived alcoholic. His coordination was off, his speech was sloppy, and Hohenheim was beginning to feel thankful Ed was still on his feet. "They're going to think I have the plague or something." All about Ed's scalp his hair was damp and his bangs looked limp and dirty.

"Ed, there are plagues here. Let's refrain from using that word." Amestris had not had a plague in decades.

"Ugh, this world is freaking awful," Ed groaned, resting a hand on his stomach. "Even the air smells bad."

The driver brought them their bag, staying well away from Ed, and fled as soon as he was paid. Hohenheim grabbed the heavy suitcase with Ed squinting at the large science signs. "What is this gibberish?" Ed asked. "It's the same style as in Eric's…" Ed trailed off, and his expression of muddled thought went slack with the birth of a new idea. "Oh god." Ed brought a hand to his sweating forehead, putting this together. "…I can't read the language here?" Ed asked, in a tone threatening to become worse. "I can't read the…"

Hohenheim grabbed Ed's arm and began a nonnegotiable pace indoors. "We can't stay out in the snow," he said, leading them to the check-in counter. He did not feel now was the time to discuss Ed's illiteracy.

A young girl came to them quickly and Hohenheim ordered a room. At his side Ed tried to be invisible and kept his face ducked down and hidden from all the traffic. The hotel was rather respectable, and the lobby was a large room with well colored upholstered waiting furniture opening into a small eating area. In the large sitting area a young boy of seven stole his sister's doll and she burst into tears. With the boy wearing a young sailor outfit, and the girl in a frilly dress and hat, Ed stared at the tall woman minding them. She was wearing high fashion and the bodice of her dress was tight and flattering. It made her waist seem pinched, and she was shaking a scolding finger at the young boy before sitting him firmly in a chair.

The review of Quantum Mechanics had droves of people moving in and out of the lobby and consequently most of the rooms were full. With Kempten what it was, the cost of this hotel room was a small price to that of something in Berlin, and higher society was cluttering an establishment which usually considered itself lucky to see bankers and doctors.

Hohenheim took what he could get; a single room with a queen sized bed, and asked for extra blankets. Once they had things together Hohenheim left the counter expecting Ed to follow but Ed seemed dazed. He stayed behind hanging tight to the counter's high wooden edge for stability and staring at the people as if dreaming.

"Ed," Hohenheim whispered, taking Ed's arm and tugging him along. "Ed, you need to be in bed." Ed looked as if someone had circled his eyes with a finger of soot. In a hospital setting he would have been cause for alarm, and out among the people, he looked like death. "Keep steady," Hohenheim said, tightening his hold on Ed's spindly arm. Ed did not seem entirely focused, and Hohenheim increased his pace. He wanted to escape to their room. "And I apologize, but we're on the top floor."

"Does this place smell coppery?" Ed muttered, struggling to walk.

Hohenheim sped up with Ed's question and made sure to keep himself in front of the boy to hide his state. The hotel was furnished in long hallways of hardwood and deep red walls. It was impressive for such a smaller German city. Hohenheim was certain there would be a small desk and separated bathroom in their room rather than just a mattress and wash bin. Ascending two flights of stairs and a second long carpeted hallway with Ed forcing himself along in lumbering steps, they arrived at their door. "I am going to order us some dinner," Hohenheim said. Ed's breath had become the audible sound of a bronchial rasp after the first flight of stairs and this scared Hohenheim more than he would admit. "I want you to take a hot bath, it will help your chest." He unlocked the door with Ed leaning into the door frame as if he'd emptied a bottle of whiskey.

"No way," Ed slurred, pushing himself up and stumbling straight for the bed. "I want to sleep." Ed climbed onto the fully made bed in his coat and curled up.

Hohenheim locked the door behind them and looked around. The room was small and practical. Hard word floor, heavy quilt on the bed, thin writing desk as he had expected, a small dresser he had not, and closet. "Ed," Hohenheim scolded, tossing his suitcase aside. "You can not sleep like this." Ed was in a tight fetal position when Hohenheim forced his hands in to the top of Ed's coat buttons and unfastened them. "Ed? You're still wearing your coat and shoes." Ed did not care. He moaned out an incomprehensible noise and was already half asleep. He was sinking from consciousness like a stone and Hohenheim considered fighting this natural science before simply giving in. He didn't have the heart to disturb Ed with him looking so weak. Instead he unpacked some clothes for them both, and left to clean up.

The bathroom was cramped with a narrow Center-Drain porcelain tub, and unique cast iron enameled pedestal sink. For a smaller city, Hohenheim was impressed, and took hold of the china cross handle knobs of the sink with appreciation. While there was little to be said about a poorly furnished room, there was tremendous comfort from a properly furnished lavatory, and the hotel did not disappoint. Satisfied, he shaved about his checks where the stubble grew upward and trimmed his short beard. Then he ran a hot bath and scrubbed himself before dressing again in trousers and a high collared dress shirt so he'd be presentable but more or less ready to retire before seeking out Ed. The hot water had warmed him efficiently, and it felt good in comparison to the cold brutal winter. Hohenheim entered the bedroom with a towel draped about this head. Ed was dead asleep and curled into a dark wool and scarf ball.

Hohenheim called downstairs and ordered soup and mash potatoes for a warm solid dinner before returning to Ed's side. "Ed, you need to get up." He pressed his palm to Ed's shoulder and rocked Ed in an unrelenting quick pace until Ed's swollen eyes cracked. Ed had been sleeping for two hours. "Come on now," he said grabbing Ed's lapels and pulling him up. Ed came limply, seeming disoriented and half asleep even as he was lifted upright. "Come on, up on your feet son," Hohenheim whispered, helping Ed to stand. With Ed teetering like a new born deer Hohenheim rushed to the lavatory and wet a cloth. He laid it on the red swell of Edward's cheek.

Ed hissed with the intense cold and pulled his face away. "That's cold!"

Hohenheim returned to Ed's buttons and was unfastening them as quickly as possible worried Ed would simply collapse. "Ed, you are taking a hot bath." Ed groaned in protest. "You'll feel better with it, get your coat off." Ed lifted his hands and held the front of his coat as if waiting to rip it apart but didn't continue. "Ed." Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Ed's flush face and snapped his fingers once. "Stay conscious." Ed gave a sleepy nod but still didn't move. Hohenheim snapped his fingers in Ed's face a few times. "Ed."

Ed snatched Hohenheim's snapping hand with alarming speed and precision. It were as if Ed reached out and snatched a fly: his grip was impressive. "Don't do that," Ed said softly, opening his eyes in a deliberately slow gaze of irritation. "Don't snap your fingers in my face."

Years ago Pinako had called a doctor from three towns over once the surgery for the leg and arm were completed. She said she had done hundreds of surgeries, _hundreds_, but never two limbs at one time on such a young boy. Ed found, drifting in and out of consciousness, with his mouth always stained with medication and tasting like chalky pills, that he was too weak to move his body with the metal ports inside. It were as if someone had pinned his leg and shoulder down with big needles and all he could do was gently wiggle the parts in-between. Pinako was adamant Ed had to lift his ports, but every time Ed did, to his horrified embarrassment, the strain on his body was so intense he pissed himself. After the first time this happened Pinako shewed Winry from the room to give him privacy and he remembered breaking into humiliated tears as the sheets were changed and Pinako cleaned him. _It happens to everyone, _Pinako had lied. She called the doctor shortly afterward.

"I hate people snapping fingers in my face," Ed said. He remembered a tall man in firmly pressed clothing snapping fingers an inch from his nose to keep his gaze whether he was asleep or not. The man was intimidating and Ed was terrified by him because the man had no tolerance for his complaints and would touch and move what he wanted with no warning. _Keep your eyes on me_, the man would order, snapping his fingers aggressively before yanking on this or that. The pain would be unbearable and if Ed closed his eyes for even a minute, or even while screaming, the snapping fingers would return.

Hohenheim looked at his hand inside Ed's small tight grip and nodded. "I am sorry," Hohenheim said, sounding confused but upon the cusp of understanding he was touching something real for Ed. Something he had missed. Something perhaps Trisha might have understood.

He helped Ed slip his coat off and hung it up with Ed slowly unbuttoning his shirt. Then he left for the lavatory and began refilling the tub when their dinner arrived.

Hohenheim went to answer the brief knock, before stalling with Ed in route. He was not expecting this, especially with Ed in the condition he was. He felt a need to intercept. To send Ed to the bath and answer the door, but restrained himself. He understood denying Ed the right of adult action, sick or not, was still denying him. While his first response felt all of Germany outside the door Ed was carelessly going to answer, his logical side corrected him. Ed was not too young, Ed was also not in any danger, and if there was danger, Ed seemed capable, and needed to hold his own.

Hohenheim retracted the single step forward he had taken and watched Ed stagger over to the room door and open it. A young girl stood in wait holding their dinner tray and Ed stared blankly at her. Neither of them spoke. They conducted a youthful awkwardness with her standing in wait until she offered the tray, and Ed took it. Ed muttered a small "thank you", and she nodded. Obediently she stood in wait for additional requests, and Ed was confused with her. He tolerated this for only a few seconds and then, unfamiliar with German customs, shut the door in her face.

Hohenheim told himself not to smile. He wanted to chuckle at his own overreaction, and Ed's delightful adolescent behavior, but managed to stay composed. He heard Ed set the tray on the bedroom desk and approach the lavatory. When he turned to the boy Ed was standing in the threshold with a soured vexed expression.

"That girl laughed at me," Ed said, with some disappointment.

Hohenheim took a towel from the near by shelf and laid it on the side of the tub with a small laugh of his own. "She did not."

"She did," Ed insisted. "She kept looking at me, do I look funny?"

"Perhaps she thought you were attractive."

"Like this?" Ed asked in astonishment. He gestured to his pale diseased expression before shaking his head. "I don't understand half of what I am wearing. Am I wearing it wrong?" Hohenheim didn't know how to answer this considering Ed's outfit was largely a shirt and pants, but Ed was looking down at himself critically. "Oh," Ed said, grabbing his open lapels and closing them quickly as if self conscious. "I had my shirt opened, and she could see this world's ridiculous underwear." Ed looked to Hohenheim questioningly. "Was I being inappropriate?"

"While I wouldn't go walking around in it Ed, I am sure she was not so stricken by your few open buttons she felt need to stare." Hohenheim began a chuckle that surprised him, but Ed was frustrated with an equation he couldn't figure out. He continued unbuttoning his shirt while glancing at parts of his outfit before giving his jaw a slight stretch to the side.

"My face?" Ed asked. Hohenheim raised his eyebrows with a bit of surprise Ed was clinging to this topic. _Did it matter why a young woman looked at you?_ "Does she think you slapped me?" Ed asked, with some insult. The right side of his face was obviously struck and still red and swollen. "Your abusive friend seems to want to."

Hohenheim considered this while steering Ed to the tub. "Germany is a strict nation." This was perhaps the easiest way to put it. "They use corporal punishment, but so does Amestris Edward, and you shouldn't judge the German people harshly because of it." Ed dropped his shirt to the floor with a bitter grunt. As if he needed no reason to judge the German people harshly. They, and their horrible world, were horrible.

"So what you're saying to me is that here, living here, I'll be subjected to the ignorant social standards of the German populous and treated like a misbehaving child by any supposed adult who feels a need to express bloated authority with violence." Ed scoffed. "Don't even think about trying anything like that with me." Hohenheim was surprised Ed felt such a statement was warranted. He had been hard pressed to spank the children before, and because Trisha didn't have the heart, those few pats he'd given the boys were the only form of physical punishment they'd ever received from him.

Hohenheim watched Ed dropped his pants to his ankles and step out of them. Wearing only his underwear Ed looked as if he were wearing Alphonse's two year old Amestrian pajamas. Hohenheim could remember Alphonse tottering about the summer months with a pacifier in his mouth in a state of content curiosity. Smiling Trisha used to bend down from her chair and coo to the boy, _Where do you think you're going Alphonse? _

"Ed." Hohenheim lowered his voice to a sincere and kind tone, but Ed ignored it. He had dipped his hand into the bath's warm water and was gently swaying it to and from. "Although I have not said anything, I am very proud of the man you have become." Ed's hand stopped swaying. "And when you respect another man, you find it very hard to encroach on his ways." Ed took his hand from the water and laid it on the small pile of provided towels. "I would not, you understand?"

Hohenheim's words were confusing missiles into a sensitive wound. They were further ammunition toward the conflict brewing inside what was once a firm conviction. Saying nothing Ed felt a line drawing in the sand within him. On one side, things stayed as they were, and on the other things were different. This world and all that was happening was forcing him to stand on this line when it had for so long been barely visible in the horizon. The rapid cross of such a distance was like speeding towards a fifty yard line without knowing what team was going to score when you crossed it.

"Do we have any soap?" Ed asked, keeping his gaze in the tub.

Hohenheim relocated the small bottle he had unpacked to the side of the tub and left for the door. He could feel Ed's desire to let what they were discussing pass. "Wash up and we'll eat," he said, leaving the door ajar behind him.

Ed fell asleep in the tub, and after forty minutes Hohenheim investigated only to find Ed with his head resting on his shoulder breathing easier in the steam. He gave the door a hard knock to wake the boy and Ed's head snapped up. "Edward, you've been sleeping." Ed looked exhausted and unimpressed with this statement. "Would you like to get out and go to bed?"

Ed looked miserably to the towel and sat up slowly with protesting muscles. "Yes," Ed grumbled, dragging the fluffy white bundle to his head.

"If you need me I'll be in the other room."

"Okay," Ed muttered, before waking up a bit with a sudden thought. "Do I have to wear my dress?" Ed called. "I want to put my pants and shirt back on." Hohenheim was closing the door the bit he had opened it and it swung in a gentle bump into the hinge. "I feel stupid." This was natural all things considered. "I sleep in my clothes all the time!" When Edward was younger he often protested when it was time to get ready for bed, and Hohenheim remembered Trisha leading Ed to the stairs by his arm and urging him up nearly every night. "Does your silence mean I have to wear the dress?" Ed asked, sounding disappointed. Ed stood up in the tub and Hohenheim could hear the water splattering back into the bathwater. "Fine, I'll wear it," Ed said miserably. "But only because you like me in it." Ed teased.

Hohenheim had eaten half of his dinner when Ed finally emerged in the cotton nightgown and went directly to the bed. Ed dropped himself on top and curled up without a word, but the silence was enough. Hohenheim could literally feel Ed sinking back into an ill and needy sleep. With Ed's eyes open a mere crack Hohenheim approached and pulled the blankets out from under the boy.

Ed lifted his gaze with barely any strength. "Why do you...put up with me, old man?" Ed whispered, body limp with fatigue as Hohenheim tucked Ed's legs beneath the covers and brought them to Ed's shoulders.

"I should ask you the same question son." Hohenheim sat down alongside Ed and stroked a hand into Ed's damp hair. "I should ask you the same question."

Ed was sleeping in a matter of seconds. As a result the evening passed slowly and Hohenheim spent much of it reviewing the trip they were to make. On his own, detours and delays meant nothing with such an abundance of time, but with travel hard on Ed he wanted a straight shot to their destination and a quick return for recovery.

From his suitcase Hohenheim retrieved a topographic map of Germany, and studied the growing altitude of the Appalachian Mountains about the Austrian border. The highest points were white, and the rest was a dark green before petering into browns as the elevation dropped. Finding a straight shot through the contour lines always looked more difficult than he remembered it being. Having traveled this way so many times he had found a road that brought him where he wanted to go, and pending the gate left the surrounding area the way he remembered it, the beginning trek would be something Ed could hopefully manage easily. Europe made travel seem easy, and had dedicated significant effort to transportation, the same way Amestris had fully developed the rail. Carefully, Hohenheim folded the map along the longitude and latitude they would want, and looked at the dark green patch of land they would soon stand within.

Around eleven he climbed into bed along side Ed's sleeping body, envisioning a dark ink stain upon his map to represent the gate, and a promising map flag representing Edward stemming from it. The thought of Edward moving over the gate gave him a sense of military conquest like troops over a battle, and the simultaneous fear of an uncertain invasion. In the dark room, he fell asleep to only the sound of Ed's shallow breathing and shortly after four the next morning he awoke but Ed did not.

* * *

Curtain falls on Chapter 10 my readers. This chapter takes us to a very different place, and we will now keep the M rating. Please share your responses. These were some powerful scenes, and I know they may be catching many of you off guard. I am eager for your thoughts. Were you surprised?

My loving thanks, again, to you consistent reviewers - You rock. I look forward to you every week.  
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Chapter 11:_ Tartarus_ will be up next Friday 03/15/13. I am honored to have you.


	11. Tartarus

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Eleven  
_Tartarus_

- mirage -

Ed slept right though the day as heavily as if he'd just laid down. Periodically Hohenheim would adjust Ed's blankets or wipe his face off. He kept a close watch on Ed's temperature, placing a cloth on his forehead when needed, before becoming nervous around dinner. Ed had been sleeping like the dead, with no movement and not a single sound. It seemed the fatigue of being born in Germany and everything which had happened: moving from the Munich apartment, experiencing the blimp, and encountering the unfortunate civilian, was too much.

"Ed?" Hohenheim began what he was going to consider pestering close to six in the evening. At this time Ed had been asleep for twenty five hours straight.

With a fresh order of dinner cooling he took to stroking Ed's back in long relaxing passes in hopes Ed might rise naturally. "Edward?" This was not the case. "Edward, you need to get up." He began an insistent nudge on Ed's shoulder, and Ed curled his expression into one of distaste. "Ed? Did you hear me?"

Ed turned his blanket covered face towards his pillow and groaned a low and sleepy, "Alphonse."

"Ed, you've been sleeping all day." Ed curled himself tighter and groaned louder in protest. "Ed, if you do not get up I will call a doctor for you."

"Aw," Ed muffled. "Please don't."

Hohenheim looked at the lumpy mass that was Edward beneath the covers and slid his hand down what looked to be the top of Ed's knee. He squeezed gently on either side of Ed's knee cap, and just as Edward had done years ago while much younger and laughing in near hysterics, Ed's entire body flinched.

"Stop," Ed ordered flatly.

Hohenheim smiled. "Still ticklish I see."

"Don't touch me."

"Then you'll have to get up." Ed did not respond to this so Hohenheim squeezed again.

Ed jerked and pushed his legs downward in the blankets. "Come on!" Ed whined. "I am so tired, I am exhausted, leave me alone."

Hohenheim leaned to the puff of blonde hair sticking out from the sheets. "If you're the son I know, you are also starving." Ed wiggled further into the sheets and Hohenheim sighed. Looking for options he went to the tray he'd ordered and buttered a croissant before returning to his seat at Ed's side. Silently he lowered the steaming bread to the break in the sheet where Edward's messy braid was peeking out.

Ed felt the invasion of Hohenheim sitting so close to him, and recoiled slightly. "What," Ed asked flatly. Hohenheim said nothing. He was confident the smell of melting butter would wake Ed's interest, and after thirty seconds Ed's hand wheedled from the sheets and extended for the food.

"You have to sit up," Hohenheim said. Ed groaned, and thrust his hand forward. "No, I need to see you sit up. If you can't, then we're going to have to do something about it."

"I can freaking sit up," Ed said miserably, still hidden beneath the blankets.

"I ordered you a tartarbeefsteak."

Ed wanted the steak, and was pushing up with weak tired arms trying to get his eyes to adjust so he could see the food. He took the croissant and crammed it entirely into his mouth while Hohenheim retrieved the meal which had cost as much as the night's stay in the room.

"What time is it?" Ed asked, taking the dish with eager hands and setting it on his lap. Ed picked up the knife and fork and began a fast careless sawing through the middle of the steak.

"Late."

Ed cut a piece far too big for his mouth, and opening wide, pushed the hunk of meat into his chin and bottom lip before tipping his head downward and fitting most of it inside. The steak was medium rare and a thick dribble of juice was leaking down Ed's fork into the prosthetic hand and to the dish from his chin.

"Edward, you're eating like an animal."

"It's," Ed spoke as he chewed, "so good." Hohenheim watched this with a critical gaze but Ed was unfazed. He struggled through a piece of steak a third the entire serving before panting downward toward his plate with a smile of satisfaction. "How far until we get to where we're going?"

"Perhaps ten hours."

Ed licked the steak juice off his fork and brought it to the pile of buttered mashed potatoes in a scooping fashion but missed. Ed's fork skipped off the plate and he tried only once more before dropping the fork and wiping his prosthetic fingers through the whipped piled. He kept his hand limp so the fingers acted as a stiff human fork before bringing them to his mouth. Ed hummed with appreciation as he sucked them clean. He was happy to get the food, and felt comfortable with how he did so, but Hohenheim discovered a parental need to intervene and reached forward to help. As soon as Ed seemed unable to use his fork while still hungry, Hohenheim picked it up. He felt compelled to help correct Ed's eating and assist him with his utensils as clearly as he felt a need to remove Ed's first bowl of spaghetti when he watched Ed lift it with delighted fascination and dump the red sauced pasta across the table. Trisha was horrified with Ed's response to a bowl of food, but Ed was happy. With one hand he hammered the bowl playfully into the sauce, and with his other he brought fistfuls of angel hair to his one year old mouth.

Hohenheim lifted Ed's abandoned fork and scooped it into the mash potatoes, but Ed froze with first a confused, and then alarmed panic someone was trying to feed him. "What are you doing?" Ed asked, ripping his fingers from his mouth.

"Ed," Hohenheim said, gesturing toward the plate in a manner which said it was obvious what he was doing.

"You're not feeding me!" Ed accused angrily. Hohenheim had left the fork held just above the edge of Ed's plate so it would be easy for Ed to take, but Ed shoved it away as if it had been lifted in gesture. "I can feed myself!"

"I was simply trying to help you." Hohenheim set the fork down and sat back non-confrontationally. Ed was bristling like a cat being cornered with a bucket of water.

"You don't need to help me!" Ed snarled, curling his flesh hand into the sheets. "I don't want anyone to feed me."

After the automail surgery Ed learned the top half of his body felt weighed as if someone had laid a cinder block across his chest. The simple act of turning his head away from the arm port made the tendons in his neck and trapezium muscle pull as if it were attached. Pinako would sit at the side of the bed and stir things in bowls before spooning them forward. For a while Ed remembered a world where eating was a chore. Drifting in a state of semi consciousness he didn't become hungry periodically the way you did for meals. There was only foggy light and sound with pain in between moments where Pinako was very easy to see. Sometimes she came with wet rags and scrubbed at him, other times it was bandages and she changed pieces again and again, but then there were times when she came with bowls.

Always before feeding started she would stir whatever she had made quickly with the spoon clinking against the glass sides, and Ed came to recognize that sound with a stomach swelling sense that he would now have to eat whether he wanted to or not. Food was mushy, made of berries, prunes, oats, and chalky powder. The clinking spoon would stop and then it would be at his lips and if he didn't cooperate Pinako would make him. It was worse to fight the spoon, but there was something shamefully humiliating about letting it in as many times as it wanted to come and trying to swallow as fast as it wanted to arrive. It was an awful powerless and naked feeling. Ed shoved Hohenheim's hand away from his plate with it stampeding back. "I know how to feed myself," Ed said, in a stridulous tone. "I can do it, and I'll do it at the speed I want, and how I want."

"Ed, I was only trying to…" Hohenheim began to explain himself before falling silent when Ed began a fast dismissive shake of his head. The action was clear, Ed did not care what he was trying to do, and did not want to understand it, he just wanted it to stop. "Okay," Hohenheim said softly. "That's fine." Ed's shaking head didn't stop. "Eat how you prefer, it's okay Ed."

"I don't want you trying to help me unless you ask!" Ed said, lifting a tightened nervous gaze to Hohenheim. Hohenheim felt himself give a slow agreeing nod. "If you want to help me, you can get me a napkin."

"A napkin," Hohenheim repeated, a bit surprised Ed would expect some type of assistance while seeming so disturbed by the simple act.

Ed narrowed his gaze with a bit of disgust. "For my hand," he said angrily.

Hohenheim looked at the serving of mashed potatoes along side the chopped steak. He began to speak, "You're going to continue with—"

"_Yes! I am going to continue with my hand,_" Ed interrupted, slapping his flesh palm into the bed. Hohenheim stood and retrieved the cloth napkin left on the writing desk with the tray. Ed sat watching with the irritated gaze of someone not comfortable with what they felt forced to do. "I just want to eat, okay? I don't care how. I don't need to learn fine motor control here." Ed yanked the napkin from Hohenheim's hand when it was offered. "As soon as I leave I'll have my automail back and I am plenty skilled with that."

Hohenheim brought his teeth together in a slow biting fashion with Ed's words. He didn't have the heart to contradict Ed's avidity. He didn't have it in him to throw salt into such an open wound, and silently he watched Ed scoop up a wad of mash potatoes and lick it from his fingers as if he held an ice cream cone.

This easily identifiable action brought about a new quiet thought: _Ed is eating_, and suddenly Hohenheim felt foolish for feeling concerned Ed was struggling with silverware all things considered. As if the skill for a fork or spoon was anything in comparison to the journey through the gate, recovery from the snow, the addition of these new limbs, and other far more important accomplishments like walking, which Ed was managing. Feeling almost ashamed, Hohenheim suddenly realized he was making Edward feel self consciously pathetic for not being able to use cutlery without commemorating him on all he'd done to get himself to the dinner table.

"It doesn't bother me Ed," Hohenheim said, trying to alleviate the guilt and what he could only sense he was causing in the boy. Ed was licking his last finger clean with his eyes closed.

"I don't care what you think," Ed said snottily.

Hohenheim doubted this was true. "It doesn't bother me you're struggling with the silverware." Ed curled his shoulders upward and seethed a low breath though his clenched jaw. He was disgusted this was still the topic of discussion. _Couldn't it just stop!_ "I realize you have so much you're trying to do, and you're making incredible leaps and bounds of accomplishment. If I stop to think about it, it's staggering."

"Then I suggest you don't."

Hohenheim cracked a smile with Ed's quick insult.

"Old man," Ed added.

"We'll travel the rest of the way by car now, and it will be a long drive. Ten hours, as I said." Ed looked up with a gaze of untrusting eagerness to continue with normal chatter. "Where we're going is no where populated Edward." Ed filled his hand with the rest of the mash potatoes and kept eating. "It is the forest, and in one portion there is a small cavern that, if you follow, will lead you to the city beneath the city."

Ed lowered his potato covered fingers from his mouth with interest. "How did you find this place?" Ed asked, sounding puzzled. "If it's in the middle of the forest, I really doubt you were just out there for a friendly hike and tripped over it."

"I felt the gate move and I followed the sensation." Hohenheim did not divulge the frantically desperate person he had become when he did so. The near hysterical and sad man who gathered only what he could and set out blindly with barely any hope he would actually make it. "It's the same way I found you." Ed was licking his fingers clean and stopped. He looked up with his pinky half out of his mouth. "You had been spit out as you came through. You were in clothing from Amestris, but your limbs were missing and you were struggling to even move in the falling snow."

Ed's pinky slowly slipped from his mouth. "Things would have gone very badly if you had not found me." For the first time since he had arrived, Ed learned how he came to be, and in what danger. Slowly, and with a shocking sensation of moronic ignorance, Ed realized he was not born in this place of Germany in Hohenheim's guest bed, and that he should have thought to ask how he had come. "I guess that clears away a small portion of the massive debt you owe me," Ed said, teasing weakly.

Hohenheim found this amusing and smiled warmly. "Perhaps."

Ed wiped his hand clean on the napkin and lifted the fork. He tipped it toward Hohenheim as if raising a glass before stabbing his steak. Ed fared with this much better, but still seemed to be in poor condition. Much of his complexion had returned with the sleep but his eyes were still light bruises in his skull. He did not look as if he had the physical strength for anything moderately aggressive. "This steak is really good." Ed spoke as he sat chewing. "Really reallygood."

Hohenheim looked towards the single window in their room. The German weather was gray, with solid cloud coverage threatening more snow. "I have been confined to this room for quite a bit of time Ed," Hohenheim said, looking to the window thoughtfully. "There does look to be more snow but," he returned his gaze to Ed's patient expression, "would you mind if I left for a walk?

Ed was chewing with the fork poking into his mouth and gave a weak shrug of uncertainty. _Wasn't the polite answer no? _"As long as you come back," Ed said, in all seriousness. Hohenheim flashed a brief smile, as if it were a joke, but they both knew it wasn't. "I'll get up while you're gone." Hohenheim left for his coat. "Don't worry about me." Ed sounded nervous watching Hohenheim prepare to leave. The long wool coat and scarf suggested a lengthy trip, and Hohenheim gave Ed's uneasy expression a warm smile.

"If you say so." Hohenheim opened the door and glanced back over his shoulder. Ed was sitting in bed looking a bit concerned with the situation, but determined to hide it.

"Go," Ed ordered, before giving a wave with his prosthetic hand. "I'll be fine."

Hohenheim left and shut the door with a sigh of relief he was escaping back to his own self desires. He had to allow himself the freedom of still being able to function independently. His son's existence was suffocating the small portion of him that had always required freedom before and after Trisha. As much as he had no desire to leave Ed permanently, he was finding he still had a need to live with respect to his independence along side Ed. Not sure where he would go in town, and not wanting to go far, he reached the stairs when he realized he should dictate a timeframe so Ed would not become nervous. An hour would be enough, and he turned around to return to their room and stopped on sight of a familiar blonde man advancing down the hall.

Beyond a doubt it was the stranger whose house they had just left. Hohenheim felt his jaw slip open. _How would the man have found them!_

Angrily the man stormed to their hotel door and knocked loudly. "Excuse me!" Hohenheim called, becoming nervous an explosive situation was inviting in Ed's weak state. The man was muttering to himself and did not so much as look up before the door opened and Ed was standing there.

It took less than a second for Ed to recognize the man and the prosthetic fist came out so fast Hohenheim barely saw it move. Ed punched German Havoc square in the face.

Havoc tripped back and fell flat over. Ed stepped out of the room wearing his opened corduroy pants with his nightgown still on top and bunched about the waist in an awkward skirt. It was clear Ed had been changing, but he stepped over the man as confident as one in a fine suit and bent down. "So, the little maggot comes back," Ed said, fisting Havoc's lapels and jerking his head up. "I've done a lot of recovering since you've last seen me," Ed said, smiling viciously.

Havoc was holding his nose and panting roughly. "I've… just come to warn you," Havoc rasped. "I have powerful friends, and if you don't…"

Ed dropped Havoc's head and it thunked back into the floor. "I don't want to hear it," Ed snarled. "Now get yourself up off the floor and out of my sight." Ed stood up and stepped back. "Or maybe I should report what you did." Havoc pushed himself up with one arm and fixed a furious glare on Ed's cocky expression.

"Give back what you took," Havoc said. "You little thief."

"Finders keepers," Ed taunted. "I believe those were your words." Havoc staggered shakily to his feet and once standing Ed lost the bitter humor in his expression and it was saturated with disgust. "Now turn tail and run before I bust your face. I promise, if we ever cross paths again, I'll beat the living shit out of you." Ed's tone was grave, and Hohenheim was surprised something as cold and dangerous could stem from Ed's voice, but even as he spoke, Ed took a discrete step to be parallel with his open doorway for safety.

"It's your decision," Havoc said, giving an elaborate shrug. "I like it better if you keep it anyway." Havoc reached up and flicked his nose with his thumb. "Makes things more interesting." Havoc took a step back and Ed was silent. "I'll take back what you took from me. That's my promise to you."

Ed watched Havoc's familiar grinning face take a few fast jovial steps down the hall before fleeing quickly. Afterward Ed returned to their hotel room and Hohenheim heard the door lock. On that final note, Hohenheim left for his walk. In an odd way he feared if he returned to the room for any reason, he would not be able to go.

* * *

Hohenheim was gone for the better part of an hour, contemplating almost every moment of his walk how he was planning to bring Edward to the closest juncture of this world and Amestris, and how that may not be a wise thing. In order to arrive there they needed to tell the gate exactly where they were. Although the gate was well acquainted with them Edward was still young, and in a human form was changing and growing. The smell of one maturing human in all of Europe would be difficult even for a power great enough to link both realms. So the fact he planned to dangle Ed at the entrance in order to force the gate to respond made him feel as if he were holding the boy out for a bloodhound. _One good sniff might be enough_.

When Hohenheim returned to the room Ed was dressed and combing through damp hair. He looked tired, but also relieved with Hohenheim's arrival, as if a small part of him was still skeptical going also meant returning. The sight of people walking out was common, making the act of loyalty a bit more special.

"How was your walk old man?" Ed asked, combing his bangs over his forehead.

Hohenheim slipped out of his coat and contemplated the question. He wasn't going to discuss what was on his mind. "Stimulating I suppose." Although nothing had become clearer he was strangely more comfortable with what they were about to do. "It gave me time to clear my head. How was it here?"

Ed lifted his left eyebrow with a bit of surprise Hohenheim would ask. _What was there to do in a single hotel room when you could not even read?_ "Can we leave soon?" Ed asked. "How long will it take us to get to the woods?"

"About a day's drive," Hohenheim said. "We will need to rent a car." Ed combed the front of his bangs and layers over his face to straighten them before shaking his head and tossing them aside. "Are you sure you'd rather not get that trimmed before we go?" Hohenheim asked, trying to consider how well Ed's bangs stayed clear of his vision while pulled back.

"Is there any reason I'd have to look good where we're going?" Ed asked, tossing the comb onto the bed and raking his hands through his damp hair. "Can we leave tonight?"

Ed looked near perfect health sitting fully dressed and freshly washed, but Hohenheim was not convinced. He had seen Ed's condition plummet quickly, and understood that where they were going would be more than a physical challenge. It would be a mental and emotional one as well. The gate was smart, and it had locked itself deep in a prison it controlled. You were not meant to have the upper hand while inside, and Hohenheim was worried about Ed charging into an arena he did not understand and could not fight.

"Edward." Hohenheim gave a heavy sigh after Ed's name and tried to breach his topic delicately. "I think perhaps it is best we give it a few days so you can rest." Ed immediately disagreed and his expression said so. At once Ed's brow dropped into an intense frown of confusion. _Stay and rest?_ "I don't think you're well," Hohenheim said honestly. He wanted to explain his viewpoint and he walked to Ed's side and took a seat alongside the boy.

"I…" Ed said quickly, sounding blindsided. "I-I need to get there." Ed shifted back to face Hohenheim. "You don't want me to go? You don't want me to leave?" Ed asked, voice escalating. "You knew that's what I wanted!" Ed started coughing and knocked his fist against his chest briefly, before clearing his throat. His eyes were darting about in rapid thought, and Ed was not done with his argument. "I told you that!"

"Edward," Hohenheim said softly, trying to ease Ed's growing alarm.

"Why would you try and stop me now!" Ed asked, raising his voice. Even this was difficult and Ed's tones became raspy. Ed stood up quickly and ran a stressed hand through his hair. "You waited until we're this close to decide you can't deal with it!"

"Ed, stop being so hot headed," Hohenheim said, with minor irritation. "You're jumping to conclusions and not paying attention to what I am saying." This was the truth. "Sit down." Hohenheim gestured to the bed, but Ed looked at it with distaste, as if sitting were somehow consenting to the rest of the conversation. Ed crossed his arms over his chest in a firm and clearly presented intent to stand. Hohenheim gave an exasperated sigh and stood up. He pushed Ed down to the bed so the boy sat, and grasped his shoulders kindly. "You're ridiculous in this condition." All it took was one weak shove to knock Ed over. "High levels of exertion or activity and you're fatigued and ill." Ed did not want to hear this and his frown was growing tighter. A new look of panic was bleeding in, and Ed was growing worried Hohenheim was retracting his offer. "Think about how vulnerable that makes you if we're out about in the forest far from any medicine."

"I am not going to break in two," Ed snapped, doing his best to look tough. "I just need to sleep and then I'll be fine." Ed fought a soft cough. "Why not worry about yourself, and stop nagging me." Ed began coughing gently, and quickly cleared his throat to fight it.

Hohenheim gestured at Ed's coughing to strengthen his position. "Why are you coughing so much?"

Ed was irritated with the coughing while he was trying to argue about his health, but didn't hide from the question. "My chest has been," Ed cleared his throat, "my chest has been slightly sensitive." Ed had not buttoned his shirt up entirely and Hohenheim reached forward and spread it. The white cotton looked flawless on Ed's healthy skin, and Hohenheim stared at Ed's exposed chest as if waiting for truth to bleed through the façade. "The shitbag who tried to rob us clocked me in the middle, and it's making it act up," Ed said irritably. "That's all." Hohenheim laid his palm in the middle of Ed's chest and beneath a few fingers he could feel Ed's heart drumming softly. "It's not a big deal," Ed said, sounding worried things were a big deal, and worse, that Hohenheim was going to acknowledge they were. "I will be okay."

"Can you inhale deeply?" Hohenheim asked. Ed nodded and gave a shallow breath. "Deeply." Ed was silent, and swallowed heavily as if this might help things. "What if you become winded while hiking?" Hohenheim asked with concern. "What then?"

"I'll keep my pace steady," Ed said quickly, pushing Hohenheim's hand off. "I'll make sure I get there," Ed said, adapting a pleading tone. Softly Ed added, "If you'll take me." He locked their gaze with intense meaning. "I'll make it." Ed sounded more than serious, he sounded certain, and Hohenheim felt a fool even as he believed the boy. "You know what it's like to be separated," Ed said, keeping a quiet almost fragile tone. "You know what it's like to be separated from what you love. If I can't get back to them, then I need to know I did all I could." Hohenheim understood this, and he closed his eyes when Ed's words hit more powerfully then the boy could ever know. _He had left his wife and children over there._ "I need to know I tried, you understand?"

Yes. Hohenheim understood, and he respected it.

* * *

"We're going to be driving for a day, so please do what you can now," Hohenheim said, hefting his weight on top of the suitcase which did not want to close.

Ed had taken his time putting on his winter attire and stood along side the hotel room door wrapped in his scarf and wool coat. Ed gave this comment a sullen glare. "I already went to the bathroom," Ed said miserably. Hohenheim laughed and leaned onto his suitcase with his elbow while struggling with the locks. He was used to packing enough only for himself, and Edward's addition was no easier on packing than it was on Europe. "I am layered as well." Ed was trying to stop all objections. "And I ate."

"Okay son," Hohenheim said warmly, latching the bag and yanking it off the bed. He looked at Ed's bundled frame which was almost twice its normal size and remembered how Trisha used to dress Alphonse so heavily the boy could barely coordinate himself in the snow.

"Can we go now?" Ed asked, becoming annoyed with Hohenheim's reminiscent expression the same way Ed was annoyed with his presence within said memories.

"Yes," Hohenheim said, walking to the door. "Ed, I feel bad about this, but will you take the blanket there on the end of the bed?" He pointed to the cotton throw and Ed hesitated for only a moment before comfortably stealing the blanket. "I'll leave them a tip to compensate it."

"You don't have to rationalize yourself to me," Ed said, chuckling softly. "I hate Germany." Ed rushed to the door and held it open. "Now let's go."

Ed was eager to leave. Looking healthier than he had in days, Ed's natural color had returned and his body had stopped the hot and colds sweats which made winter travel dangerous. Ed kept a quick pace in the halls and Hohenheim matched it. He had not seen Ed move this fast since he'd arrived and it brought a smile to his face.

Outside Germany was determined to snow some more. Light flakes were just beginning to settle atop the rented cab like salt. "I made sure to get a back seat," Hohenheim said, tossing the suitcase in the back while Ed climbed into the front passenger side. "I want you to be able to sleep for most of the ride."

Ed looked hurt when Hohenheim climbed into the driver's side. "You don't want me to know the way?" Ed asked, sounding surprised and almost crushed.

Hohenheim gave these words a kind smile. "I want you coherent on arrival," he corrected. "If you like I will draw you a map. There is no reason for there to be secrets between us." Ed was satisfied with this and Hohenheim started the car. It rattled unsteadily and sent a noticeable vibration about the dashboard and car floor before kicking into gear. "Now if you get tired, I want you to sleep."

Ed leaned to the window and propped his head into his hand with a heavy sigh. Much of Germany's scenery was under the snow, and what little was left included business signs and advertisements which were largely too obscure for Ed to read. "Fine." Ed was irritated he might need to sleep part of the way like a small child.

"And I have to make a stop first."

Hohenheim stopped at a small general store and purchased some extra water and a pain ointment. He left Ed in the car so he could phone Graham and let the man know he was out of town but would keep in touch. He had found when working with humans it was always best to know where a doctor was, and in Ed's case, he wasn't exactly sure what affect the gate would have on the boy, but he was hoping it would be strength.

They left traveling East with the city's brick and cobble giving way to the vacant plains leading to the Alps. The steady hum and momentum of the car was relaxing and Hohenheim kept his eye on Ed. They had each opened their windows the slightest bit and Ed seemed relaxed with their travel and watched the scenery pass through a half lidded gaze.

With their altitude increasing their path became considerably wooded and the snow petered out. They had left shortly after five in the morning, and by two had reached the higher mountain roads. The scenery at this time had become mundane and Ed was tired in his seat. Hohenheim was hoping Ed would move into the back of the car and sleep. He remembered Trisha having a natural mother's grace to imply, or outright say things, he felt he could not. Somehow suggesting Ed sleep felt disrespectful to Ed's age, where as in his head he could hear Trisha's voice as clear as if it were yesterday: _Ed, you're too tired. You're taking a nap._

"I think I'll stop soon," Hohenheim said, breaking the long comfortable silence that had settled between them. Ed glanced over, but said nothing. "To use the facilities." Ed sighed hard before bringing a hand to his face and rubbing at his eyes. "Do you need to stop?" Ed didn't answer this. He tipped his head back yawning before cracking his neck. Hohenheim pulled the car to the shoulder and parked.

"Are we close?" Ed asked, climbing out. Ed took a deep appreciative breath of the mountain air before shutting his door and walking up the road. Hohenheim went to the left so there would be considerable space between them and prepared to relieve himself onto the brush. "Are we!" Ed called, walking a few feet into the woods and selecting a tree.

"Maybe another half an hour!"

"We're that close!" Ed sounded excited.

Hohenheim returned to the car and looked up at the clear sky. He had over estimated their drive and it surprised him. They had made good time, and that was important. He did not want to leave that place after the sun had gone down. He had never done so before, and doubted he ever would.

Hohenheim returned his gaze to Ed, and laughed on sight of the boy struggling to button his fly. Ed looked up with the laugher and gave a brief curse before continuing. "We made good time leaving so early, much better time than I anticipated Edward." Ed left the woods, and returned quickly with his hands stuffed into his pockets. "We'll be near the top when we reach our finish." Hohenheim pointed at the mountain tip in the distance and Ed looked at the impressive escalation in the fog.

"How high is that altitude?" Ed asked. "Are we going to have problems going up?"

"Perhaps if we had not lived as close as we've been." Hohenheim left for the backseat of the car. He moved the suitcase to the small truck, and opened the blanket along the back cab.

"We shouldn't stop half way up?" Ed asked, standing in the road staring up at the mountain. "Maybe just to be on the safe side?" Ed approached the car. "Is that how high we were in the blimp Hohenheim?"

Hohenheim looked up and glanced at the mountain before giving Ed's back a comedic slap. "We were much higher than that Ed." Ed was both excited and fearful with this news, and his eyes widened a bit. Ed lifted his gaze back to the mountain's tip in silent awe he had been higher then the peak. "You were higher than the birds son."

Ed's eyes moved up to the tops of the trees about them and into the wide open sky. "Higher than the birds," Ed repeated softly. A gentle breeze came up the road and felt uncommonly warm as if the seasons were moving into spring, and not planted in winter. "To think such a thing is possible in this place." Ed's bangs were blowing gently in the wind. "That kind of thing will change the entire world." Hohenheim knew that this was true, and that what little man had mastered now was only the beginning, but he wasn't expecting Ed to see it. To understand that flight would be what would remove the separation created by the oceans and begin the very real expansion of global unity. Ed turned around in the wind and watched Hohenheim climb into the driver's seat before looking at the open back passenger door. "We don't fly at home." Ed climbed in gracefully and pushed the blanket aside. "At all. We don't have anything capable of rising up that way."

"You have hot air balloons." Hohenheim turned the engine and the car jerked forward before settling into its engine.

"_We _have hot air balloons," Ed said quickly. Ed was not impressed with this statement and gave Hohenheim a hard frown. "You're from my side. You belong on my side." Hohenheim was surprised with Ed's conviction considering their relationship. _Was it different to want someone in your world than to want them as a father?_ "Does this feel like your home now Hohenheim?" Ed asked, sounding further disgusted Germany may have become what Amestris apparently wasn't to him.

"And how would one define a home," Hohenheim said thoughtfully. Ed averted his eyes with this question and lay down. "Where one is born? Where one is raised?" This was a question to be asked and not one to be answered. "If Alphonse had crossed the gate with you, would this be your home because you would be with him?" Even from the front Hohenheim could hear Ed's breathing tighten with mention of Alphonse and his separation. "In theory if we had all crossed together, perhaps with your mother, years ago, a year ago…a day ago…" He fell silent and let this idea develop into a functioning German house where Trisha was there when he came home from work and the boys were in school. "Would this not be our home?" Hohenheim took that last right off the main traveled road onto the back winding path that was more dirt than anything else. "So you must think, what defines a home? And by definition, what emotion enables man to identify that home as such."

Ed was thoughtfully quiet with these statements and Hohenheim drove in peace for twenty minutes. Then, nearly ten minutes from arrival he glanced into the back seat and found Ed asleep on his side holding the blanket, which had been wadded into a pillow. Hohenheim smiled on sight of Ed sleeping peacefully and in the same fashion Ed had in the farmhouse wearing pajamas with small fish and dinosaurs.

* * *

Ed woke when they parked and climbed out of the car looking refreshed. "My chest feels good," Ed said happily, opening his arms as if to greet the forest and inhaling deeply. "The air here is good for me." Ed laid a hand over his heart looking pleased and finally comfortable.

"The air is thinner, that's why it's easier for you to breathe," Hohenheim said, heading into the woods with the single lantern he brought. He had parked them on the side of the road where they would not be bothered. Then he left into the forest with only an unlit lantern and Ed followed. "Watch your footing now son." The forest was dense with a thick and moist manner of growth that started several feet above their heads creating a fog and trapping everything within. It locked moss about the trees and ground and all of the plants were blooming large leaves. Undisturbed the growth was wildly out of hand and the ground was undulating like an ocean bottom of roots, brush, and decaying matter.

Ed followed quickly and wondered outward the way he did in an Amestris forest, but this gave Hohenheim an unease which bordered on mild fright.

"Edward!" Hohenheim's raised voice startled Ed away from the aspen he was examining, and Ed obediently came to Hohenheim's outstretched hand looking a bit uncomfortable. "Please," Hohenheim said, gripping Ed's upper arm. "My words of caution are to be taken serious." He continued toward their target guiding Ed by the arm.

Ed shook himself free after a few steps. "I know the ground is uneven," Ed said angrily. "But I can walk fine."

Hohenheim turned to the boy with concern. Hanging onto Ed did not seem to be an option. He could tell by Ed's expression and demeanor Ed was not going to allow it. Ed wanted to reach their destination on his own two feet. This would be an important physical and mental hurtle for him, and Hohenheim looked about for a suitable walking stick.

"Are you listening to me?" Ed asked, angry when Hohenheim did not respond to his comments. "I know how to walk I said." Hohenheim went to a fat stick protruding from the Earth and uprooted it. "When I am speaking you could…" Ed silenced with confusion when Hohenheim turned to him with the muddy stick. "What's that for?"

"It's a suitable walking stick," Hohenheim said, offering it. Ed looked uncomfortable with the idea, but Hohenheim wasn't negotiating. He grabbed Ed's flesh hand and put the walking stick inside. "You feel the ground with only one leg Edward. Do not become so cocky you put yourself at risk." Ed looked at the stick with distaste and didn't argue. "Stay close." Hohenheim turned to the North and walked forward through the brush with the moss cushioning each step like a fine rug. Even though the forest was different every time, there was a familiarity to the place he could not shake. It radiated up from the ground as if the solidarity of the soil, and the mass of teaming life between them meant nothing. The gate stared up with a hungry eye and waited for him to wonder back inside like the sad repetitive being he was.

Hohenheim shuddered with the contemplation of his action. How close did he have to get before he no longer doubted his decision? Would he have to wait until Ed was taunting the gate into Europe to know whether or not showing his son where it was, and likewise, showing the gate where his son was, was a good idea?

Hohenheim looked back over his shoulder, but Ed was lagging behind him by several feet. Ed's pace was slow with wide eyes sweeping the forest like a kid in a candy store. "This forest is incredible," Ed said, stopping in his tracks and kneeling down with interest. "I've never seen a forest like this." Ed lifted his palm from the forest floor and sitting inside it was a small frog, the color pattern indigenous to Germany. "I don't remember a forest like this while growing up." The frog hopped down and into the brush and Ed stood back up. "Or any place I've been in travel." All about Ed's ankles was cotton colored fog and Hohenheim knew it would grow thicker as they continued. "Are all forests in Germany like this?" Ed asked, making his way to Hohenheim's side.

No forests in Germany were quite like this one. "I am not certain," Hohenheim said. He believed there would not be a forest in all of Europe quite like this one, but he had visited none to test this theory.

The fog was up to Ed's knees by the time he arrived, and Ed bat at a puff which waft up to his hand. "Are we going to be able to see?" Ed looked back in the direction they'd come and somehow things looked more peaceful behind them. "Exactly, where are we going?" The path ahead was growing dark, the fog was becoming worse. Somehow the forest seemed to know what it was hiding and bent around it with branches curling and reaching downward in odd angles. "The temperature is rising." Ed grabbed Hohenheim's sleeve and tugged.

"Keep your coat on," Hohenheim said firmly. Ed looked confused with the harsh tone and gave his shoulders and uncomfortable shrug.

"It's heavy." This order made no sense to Ed. "There's no reason I should carry it in this temperature."

Hohenheim continued onward, readying the lantern in his left hand and checking the matches were in his right pocket. Every time things were a bit different, and although he felt certain he knew where he was going, there was an aura of sabotage, and his faith in his memory told him that those things which he did not recognize from before: a misplaced tree or the number of paces from the road, was because they had changed since he had last visited. The forest seemed as much a puppet to the gate as they did, and it was impossible to tell if the gate was manipulating the forest for concealment, or if the entire forest was simply another extension of what existed below them.

Hohenheim stopped walking when Ed stepped around him and blocked his path "I won't leave it behind," Ed said, sounding annoyed he was being ignored.

"It will get colder where we're going." Hohenheim said. "If you need to lose weight we can remove your arm." Ed jerked back with the idea, as if it were assaulting, and looked so sincerely worried Hohenheim laughed.

"That was the face you wore years ago when I asked you to check under your bed for monsters," Hohenheim said, chuckling to himself.

When Ed was much younger Winry had told both Ed and Alphonse an old wives tale about goblins who lived under bridges, and for many nights after Ed was insistent the room be checked for goblins before he'd climb into his bed. Trisha made this a fun loving game, coaxing Ed to the side of the closet and counting to three with him before peeking inside, but Hohenheim took a different approach. With Ed standing in trepidation with the stuffed bear Pinako had sewn him and the baby blanket Trisha had made when she was four months pregnant, Hohenheim walked into the tiny bedroom where things were so miniature in size it would be impossible to hide a goat never mind a goblin, and put his hands on his hips. "Well," he had asked, "Are you going to help me look?" Alphonse, who had been waiting at Ed's side, walked happily into the bedroom with only the confidence a five year old can muster. The three hundred and sixty-fives days of life events Ed had made this idea less favorable, and Ed was hugging his bear by the leg when he shook his head. "Alphonse is looking," Hohenheim chided, "We will look in the closet and you can look under the bed Ed."The expression of instant, and panicky, disagreement which sprang into Ed's face when he heard he would have to check for goblins beneath the bed, was the same expression to seize Ed's face over a decade later when Hohenheim suggested removing his arm.

Hohenheim loved the sight of Edward as the small tiny boy he remembered. At the age of three Ed had once taken the sandwich Trisha made him for lunch and crushed it into an ant hill a fraction of the size, and with enough strength to successfully kill any ant beneath it, in order to share with the hungry ants. The purity of Edward's emotions was heartwarming to Hohenheim. When they reappeared now, years older but still seeming to spring from his memory, it delighted him.

"Shut up," Ed snapped, irritated with the laughing. "I'll manage." Ed stomped ahead and waited for Hohenheim to resume the lead. Then they walked onward and Hohenheim was impressed Ed could match his pace, but also cautions of Ed's determination to do so. Accordingly he conducted himself the way he wanted Ed to precede, slowing when the ground became soft and rocky, and moving faster when it was clear. They reached the entrance when the sun still at its height, and the sight was simply surreal. The sun poured downward through the trees like gold melting into the forest.

Hohenheim stopped alongside a small mound where the vegetation was incredibly thick and misplaced. The soil here seemed incredibly fertile and the plants were tall and drooping about a vine with intimidating thorns. On the right side, growth was coming through, and overtaking rocks which seemed to have tumbled from no where. The knoll which existed was an unnoticeable abomination on the forest floor that plants were trying to cover, and Hohenheim slapped them aside. He kicked the vine away from where they would be and gestured at the dark slanted crevice he unburied. "We're going through there." It was a dark webbed hole, and Ed looked at it uncertainly but did not comment.

Hohenheim considered Ed thoughtfully. _Before they entered he needed to communicate the change Ed would feel coming_. Ed returned Hohenheim's gaze and Hohenheim found the intensity of Edward's eyes marveling. Just as Edward's smell had not changed, the soul which was inside his son's eyes as a boy was there today, and it impressed him. _The precious gift of Edward's life-force could humble him to his knees._

"Edward," Hohenheim said softly. "When you were a boy you were very secretive at times. You're communication was selective, and it's taken me a long time to find a word to depict you as clearly as that." He paused. "I was never one of the people you confided in." Ed did not correct him, and he paused again. "But inside you must not hold back if you need to communicate. You'll feel an urgency, and this can't be ignored."

"Urgency for what?" Ed asked.

"You'll just know." Hohenheim turned to the hole and crouched down. "There is not a doubt in my mind you'll not recognize it as my son." He crawled in carefully with his knees using the support of the rocks for leverage and his palms on the soil floor. The hole was a small tunneled entrance and once inside there was room to stand up. On his feet Hohenheim turned around and placed a protective hand on Ed's emerging golden head. Ed crawled in easily with apprehensive silence and stood up blinking in the darkness. Barely any light penetrated and Hohenheim fished the matches from his pocket and lit the lantern. "Are your eyes adjusting all right?"

"Yeah," Ed said, glancing about the tunnel walls framing them. Hohenheim could feel Ed's confusion, and with it, questions.

"We're in the mound." It was as simple as that. "Follow me, and we'll go deeper." This was the easiest way to put it. "But we're going down, make no mistake."

They could walk for only ten feet, and then they were forced to crawl. This slowed their progress, but not their spirit and they moved in silence for what Hohenheim knew to be about a thirty minute period. At this time only the lantern was guiding them, and he slowed his pace when he felt a draft. He was waiting for it, and like a landmark it told him whereabouts they were. _Already he could feel it becoming stronger. _Then as he crawled he slid his weathered palm before him in smooth passes. Testing to make sure the soil and granite would always be there.

Hohenheim kept his focus on his hand. In the dark he needed to know when it arrived, and the best way to be certain was to feel it. Having visited before he recognized the strong compounding spirit of the place like that of an old scent. It was the odor of it. The presence of it, and it was a fear he had learned to passively allow. It made you think the enemy was upon you, but that was only half true. _It could not touch them yet._

"What is this?" Ed spoke, breaking their silence. "Hohenheim?" Ed's tone was demanding, and sooner than Hohenheim had expected Ed seemed to be feeling it. "This..." Ed trailed off sounding nervously uncertain. The lantern made only enough light to create a glowing bubble about Hohenheim's top half. Ed was left entirely in darkness with only light visible up ahead.

The gate was little more than a phantom at this stage, but still strong. It knew of them, but only with the understanding there were two of them, and that they were growing skittish.

"Just keep moving Ed," Hohenheim said firmly. There was too much to explain to put what was happening into words, and much of it was too horrible. For Edward to really understand what was happening around him, meant the possibility he might not be able to continue moving forward. Or worse, they would have to exit, and then try again.

"I think we should stop for a second," Ed said, voice low with edgy worry. The sensation was growing stronger, and Hohenheim was certain Ed could now feel the gate as he did. It was conscious of them the way one coming from a deep slumber is. Groggy at first, but then fueled, and delighted with interest. Far off in the German city the sensation of the gate was slight, sometimes a rough shiver, a tickle at the top of your spine, or sudden unprovoked goose bumps, but here it was different. Here they were climbing into the pit of it all, the stomach of it all, and there was a distant but unmistakable pull on his chest. It was the same undeniable and involuntary tug that Edward felt, and it was the gate hungrily sucking at what it had not been able to digest: the soul which had crossed.

The gate wanted to eat them, and that was the sensation that could be felt. It wanted to possess them, kill them, and get to them as soon as possible to do these things. The resulting feeling of this intention was an emotional attack from an unseen enemy, and Hohenheim could hear Ed's breathing growing faster. He had learned to focus his mind, to ignore the psychological assault because the gate was the strongest when denied the upper hand and was spitefully angry. So until they arrived, until they were standing in the hell of it, without what little self owned power was possible, all of this, was a bluff.

"Ed, ignore it," Hohenheim ordered, tone unusually harsh. _It must be ignored._

The sound of them crawling made the noise of rocky sediment crunching beneath their knees, and lose soil being scuffed to the side or rolling with their travel. From the moment they began crawling this was the melody. So when they both heard the sudden sound of dirt crumbling sloppily off the side of the wall from behind them, as if someone had rammed their shoulder into it, they both looked back. It was one distinct sound, and it was close.

Ed choked out a single breath and shifted closer to the narrow tunnel wall for safety. He spoke, keeping his voice low and even, "Something is behind us."

Hohenheim gave his head a shake. The gate was toying with them. "Nothing is behind us."

It was completely black behind Ed. From Ed's waist downward, his body was barely visible, and after that it was nothingness.

Closer to them, the sound of dirt shuffling, as if someone were crawling quickly at them, became audible, and Ed turned himself around at once. He flipped himself from hands and knees, to sit as much as possible so he could take what was coming head on. "It's coming right for us!" Ed cried, raising his left hand to block with his right ready to attack. The sound that was coming was not human. The speed was too great, and a low level of wet panting, like a dog with its tongue hanging out, was sounding with rabid hunger. "Get ready to back me up!" Ed cried, sounding more than scared with the distance closing.

Hohenheim set the lantern down. It was impossible there could be something in the cave, and even more impossible that it would sound and act like this. In all of his travels he'd never encountered an entrance like this. There had never been anything as cliché as a monster in the tunnel. Frantically he tried to determine what about their entrance was different, before realizing dumbly he was looking right at it. _Ed._ Ed was the change!

"Ed, it's toying with you," Hohenheim said, his voice was angry. The sound was coming. _Forty feet. Thirty five Feet. Thirty Feet. _"I am telling you, it is not there." Was it possible for Ed to manifest something in the cave? Was it possible the gate would actually go to such lengths to attack them prematurely?

The sound of claws, sharp and many like the paws of a large cat could now be heard digging into the tunnel floor as it charged. "Fuck this!" Ed cried, trying to pull his legs into himself. "Why didn't we bring a weapon! Hohenheim! How could you have brought us here without one!" Hohenheim felt a rush of confusion when Ed sounded angry with him. Was that what the gate wanted? Did it want them separated?

_Twenty Five Feet. Twenty Feet. Fifteen Feet._

Hohenheim launched himself forward. In the tunnel there was not enough room for him to get past Ed, and his movement shoved Ed roughly into the side of the tunnel wall. Ed was not expecting this, and floundered with Hohenheim's arrival. Hohenheim opened his arms, as if preparing to hug the oncoming monster, and Ed grabbed at the arm Hohenheim had placed before his chest like a shield. "Edward, I swear to you I know what I am doing, but you're going to have to believe that for this to work!" Hohenheim yelled. _Ten Feet. Nine Feet. Eight Feet. _"There is nothing here! It wants you to fear it, and it wants you to fear me!" _Five Feet._

The noise stopped suddenly, as if it had never been, and not even a draft came to them. Ed had expected the monster's arrival, because his senses could hear it advancing, and when it should have impacted, Ed shuddered heavily and turned his face to the side to save it from whatever would have collided.

There was nothing.

Hohenheim lowered his arms, and let himself relax. The adrenaline of the moment had sped up his breathing although it was not as bad as Ed's. "See?" he whispered, giving Ed a warm smile. The side of Ed's face was slightly streaked with dirt, and Ed's expression was knitted with baffled alarm. "We're alone in the tunnel." Hohenheim returned to the lantern and prepared to crawl forward before looking back. "Are you ready?" Ed was mute with what had just happened, and glanced up with a capable gaze. "Okay then." Hohenheim resumed crawling at a faster pace. He did not want to wait around in this tunnel for anything else. Long ago he had trained himself to become neutral and level headed upon entering the gate's terrain, but he could not deny it was irritating him with these pointless jokes.

They managed another ten feet before the first sound of crumbling dirt came again from behind them. Hohenheim heard Ed stop, as if frozen with alarm. "Ed," he said angrily. "There is nothing behind us, now listen to my voice and keep crawling." The gate was taking a new approach, and Hohenheim could feel it staring up at them. Fixing a tight gaze and letting its intensions be known. Ed continued crawling, but his speed was hurried with a desire to place distance between them and the sound behind them. His breathing was coming short and the tunnel seemed claustrophobic. A sensation of dread began slowly, and following it came a sense of murder which could only be described as both a wanting love to murder, and certainty they would be murdered.

Ed felt himself panicking, and was doing his best to control it. It was hard to see in the dark, and he could barely move trapped in the dirt tunnel. Without a weapon his mind was turning into a loud screaming sound, and his false limbs were starting to shake with his lack of mental control to the nerves. Softly, he tried to speak and managed only a small "I…"

Hohenheim didn't slow his pace. "Keep fighting it Ed." He didn't know how long Ed could, and he was determined to get them there. He moved faster, knowing Ed would force himself to keep up. "When we arrive it will know."

"_What will!_" Ed cried, sounding scared. "Hohenheim, I feel like I am loosing my mind!" With no enemy and nothing to be frightened of the irrational, but very real and powerful danger that could be felt was immense. It was the sensation of being an ant along side a beast which only had to decide to kill you. "Hohenheim!" Ed grabbed at the back of Hohenheim's ankle for comfort. In the narrow tunnel Hohenheim looked back and held up the lantern. It the dim yellow light Ed lifted wide frightened eyes just as two things happened.

The first, Hohenheim began to speak. "It's all right," he reassured, raising his voice to be sure he was heard. "Just keep your wits about you son."

The second, Hohenheim slid his hand upward and the moment he reached what he was searching for it howled out, blowing a gust of wind fierce enough it blew out the lantern and threw Edward's bangs back from his face. The screaming sound was so intense Hohenheim realized it was deafening when he was yelling to Ed and with the third yawning stretch of his mouth even he couldn't hear his own words.

In the darkness Ed dropped to his stomach and covered his head with the wind whipping violently overhead. It was a quick tornado, the final signal to turn back, and it stopped as suddenly as it had started. Laying with the lantern in a tight grip, waiting for it to pass, Hohenheim could hear Ed clap for alchemy in the dark. When it was over, they were both still and quiet. Ed, in nervous superstition what seemed to be viciously aware of them would become agitated again, and Hohenheim in a relaxed and patient acceptance. After thirty seconds of silence he fished a match from his pocket and rekindled the lantern before looking back to Ed.

Ed was nothing but a curled bundle of a wool coat and golden hair peeking out from between clamped fingers. Hohenheim reached back as carefully as he could and laid his hand over the prosthetic gripping Ed's skull.

It was over after the howling wind: the sensation of dread and unease, the odd sounds, the feeling of unnaturalness in what now seemed a perfectly natural cavern. It all went away. Hohenheim had come to regard this as the final warning, and after it was given, your presence was your consent to the unknown, and the place was free to do with you what it would.

"Edward," Hohenheim whispered, forcing a weak smile when Ed lifted his head and looked up with confused curiosity. Ed was experiencing the rapidly dissolving sensation to fight for his life and his expression was a befuddled mess. Lingering in his brow was the urge to protect himself and confusion he had a moment ago believed he had to when now he felt nothing. "It has passed." Ed didn't ask what had passed, and Hohenheim beckoned Ed to crawl up higher. "We made it." Hohenheim could feel the tips of his fingers touching what they had fought to reach. "I want you to see this."

* * *

Thus concludes chapter eleven lovely readers. Thank you for reading.

I hope you are eager for more. There was a lot in this chapter: growing Hohenheim and Ed development, travel further into Germany, the forest, the tunnel, and of course, where we have arrived. _What surprised you? What startled you? What was your favorite part?_ **Please leave a review** in the box below, it is much appreciated. (If you have read this far and not yet reviewed, I urge you to. Your hungry eyes have read hours of slave labor, please let your fingers type a thank you).

We will take our first (and perhaps only) two week break now. I am working hard to finish _Ball of Wax_ for you all, and hope many of you will read that as well (I have updated my profile with details).

Chapter 12: _Swallow Me_ will be up 3/29/13. Hope to see you there.

_As always my endearing thanks to those consistent reviewers. I am thrilled to have you, even if you're eating ramen for breakfast, and reviewing while at work, lol. You guys rock._


	12. Swallow Me

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Twelve  
_Swallow Me_

- mirage -

"This is it." Hohenheim extended the lantern over the narrow two foot hole that lead straight into the earth.

Ed slid up along side Hohenheim brushing bits of sand from his face, and stopped with shock when it appeared like a black stain in the light silt. It was a confining, uneven tunnel, worse even then the one they were in.

"What is it?" Ed asked, grasping the side and pulling himself forward. Ed extended his neck and head over the hole like a cat and stared downward into the blackness. "What is this thing?"

"The entrance."

Ed looked up with shock. "This?" Ed asked with disbelief. "It's going straight down." The crevice leading into what looked like a well of oil was no more than four and half feet in diameter, and irregular at that. "Is it safe?" From the hole the wind was still active, and Ed's bangs were brushing about his forehead in the breeze.

"Will the answer sway your course of action?" Hohenheim asked. Years ago when he had come, he too first looked into the cavern, and then into the well with worry, but no matter how worked up he became; the idea to turn back had never bloomed as an option. There was only him and the gate. "You will go in none the less," Hohenheim said softly.

Ed's expression tightened with a bit of concern Hohenheim seemed to understand something he couldn't, before pointing into the hole. "It's inside there," Ed said with conviction. "I can feel it." Hohenheim looked at Ed's pointing finger. The digit was long and thin like Trisha's, but Ed's knuckle had increased in size to something male and the dirt made Ed's hand look younger. "At the bottom," Ed said softly, lowering his voice as if they might be overheard.

"Oh yes, it's inside all right."

"Why does…it feel…" Ed trailed off looking uncomfortable with the need to communicate so personally. It was uncommon, if not unheard of, for them to converse with pure sincerity. Given the surroundings, the awkward sensation of vulnerability this brought was made more severe, and it was knocking fiercely against the wall Ed had built against Hohenheim at a young age. Hohenheim could see it slowing Ed's tongue as if his mind couldn't find the right words, and Ed wiped at the remaining dirt on his face while collecting himself. "Why does it feel…"

"Why does it feel like it senses you just as you sense it?" Hohenheim asked. Ed looked scared with how clearly this was articulated. "Because it does."

Ed pulled away from the hole and gave his head a fast shake of refusal. He laid down in the dirt to rest and curled his arms to his chest tucking his hands into his armpits. Hohenheim could see Ed's discomfort.

"But it cannot open at will, and it will not do so," Hohenheim reassured, sitting the lantern at Ed's side.

"Are you sure?" Ed asked softly. _Yes, the gate opening was a dangerous thing. It was the sort of thing you ran from._ Hohenheim began turning himself in a tight wedge within the channel. The soles of his shoes kicked up loose dirt from the walls and the dragging twist of his body scraped silt and shards of rocks roughly over the edge of the hole. "Hohenheim? Are you absolutely sure?"

"Come on," Hohenheim said, sliding his legs into the passageway. Ed scrambled up with immediate alarm and looked at the tar pit Hohenheim seemed to have sunken into. "I'll go first." Hohenheim picked up the lantern and gave Ed a fast smile. "You'll fit." He stepped downward, letting his foot slide along the wall until securing a small but suitable ledge to stand on. "Keep your coat tight to you, and your hair. Pull back your bangs as much as you can." Ed swallowed roughly. "Always feel the surface you'll step down to before doing so, and I'll be right under you if you fall."

"Who is going to be under you if you fall!" Ed sounded frightfully astonished with this plan. "We don't even have anything to set up a safety with! And only one lantern!"

Hohenheim stepped downward again and the surface of Edward's ground was level with his cheekbone. "And yet you'll still climb into this hole with me," Hohenheim said, with amusement his son had in some ways turned out so very much like him. "Don't worry so excessively Edward," Hohenheim teased, slipping the ring of the lantern's grip onto his thumb so his palm could feel about the wall with his other for purchase. "It wants us to get in, remember?" Ed looked disturbed with this idea and dropped his gaze into the hole. Hohenheim kept descending. "Are you coming?" he mocked. "Or do I have to make chicken noises?" Hohenheim looked up with a smile. "Bawking and such?"

Ed yanked back and tossed his legs in. "Not unless you want two black eyes." Ed slid in haphazardly; swiping dirt off the hole's surface and sprinkling down dust and bits of rock. Hohenheim closed his eyes and let the particles bounce off him and fall silently downward. Ed entered smoothly, but was tightly gripping what he could manage with shaky limbs.

"Ed, now listen carefully to me," Hohenheim said firmly. "You're going to stay calm. You're not going to panic."

"I am not going to panic," Ed repeated obediently, looking very near panic with the prosthetics suffering both detailed motor control and traction of flesh against rock.

"That's right," Hohenheim said firmly. "You move one limb at a time." Ed slid his right leg downward pressing his foot into any crevice he could find before managing a hold near Hohenheim's shoulder. Once Ed's leg was in position he moved his left arm, then his left leg, and like a spider managed to align one limb at a time with Hohenheim descending below him.

The tunnel was wide enough they could spread their limbs comfortably, with their knees and elbows bent for maximum strength. Progress was slow but sure, and Hohenheim guaranteed he never moved faster than Ed so Ed never felt compelled to move faster than he was comfortable. For a descent the climb was not brutal, but it was still a form of caving, and they lost all conversation. They focused intently on testing each foothold and securing every grip. Ed was cautious with his false hand, often giving the rock he was to hold a firm shove to check the strength a fake hand could not register.

Hohenheim had traveled the tunnel enough he was familiar with the ride, and worked steadily until it began to grow narrow as he knew it would. Suddenly what was much like climbing down a narrow well shrunk in like a coffin. He felt the pinch at once with his knees coming close together and he paused for a minute and took out his pocket watch. They had been climbing downward for almost forty minutes.

"Ed?" Hohenheim looked up and raised the lantern so the warm golden light reached the blackness about the top of Ed's head. "Do you want to rest?"

"What!" Ed called, continuing his slow shuffle downward.

"I asked if you wanted to rest."

"To rest!"

"Yes."

"No!"

"Are you sure?" Hohenheim asked skeptically. "The tunnel is going to become tighter." He leaned back into the jagged wall and then jerked upright again when a piece of rock pricked him dangerously.

"Tighter?" Ed called, sounding astonished. "What do you mean tighter? How much tighter!"

Hohenheim worked himself down another step so he could lean back and look up easily. "I would estimate near a foot, but at the least a half a foot."

Ed stopped climbing and returned Hohenheim's gaze. Even in the dim light Hohenheim could see the pinch of deep consideration in Ed's expression. "_Hohenheim,_" Ed said softly, and Hohenheim heard the thoughts Ed's expression was conveying. A tunnel that thin was barely enough to have your arms in front of you, and if you became stuck, hardly enough to wiggle free depending on the pinch.

"I've traveled it several times," Hohenheim reassured. Ed did not break his disapproving glare. Hohenheim gestured toward the sharp edge of rock that had jabbed him. "Watch out for that sharp rock Ed." Ed glanced at it before closing his eyes in a rough exhale and shimming downward. "We'll make it through okay."

"That's awfully tight," Ed warned.

"We'll make it through."

"Hohenheim," Ed scolded. "That's _awfully _tight." Ed stepped downward and his foothold lost stability and he skidded a fast inch before catching himself. It was not the first time either of them had done this, and so neither of them became too alarmed. Hohenheim held up a hand to stop debris from getting into his eyes. Ed cursed colorfully, latching securely to the rocks with both hands, before silencing when they both heard a foreign distinct crunch noise which they had not heard before. "What was that?" Ed asked quickly. Ed looked up with immediate alarm. As if the thing which had haunted them before might reappear.

Frankly, Hohenheim wasn't sure it wouldn't, and was hoping they had seen the last of whatever the gate was using to tease them. He lifted the lantern a bit higher but there was nothing but blackness above Ed's head. So far under the Earth's surface the light wouldn't penetrate any further. What little they could see of the tunnel was the uneven craft of the walls. Once they stopped moving there was utter silence, and they stared into the darkness before Hohenheim lowered the lantern as much as he could and they did the same to the blackness about his legs.

"What was it?" Ed whispered.

Hohenheim gave his head an absent shake. "I am not sure." He returned the lantern to chest height so Ed could share the glow. "But there is nothing down where we're going, so we shouldn't have anything to be worried about."

Ed looked skeptical. "I hope you're freaking right."

Hohenheim nodded. "I am." He stepped down to the next available ledge and Ed moved to follow but only jerked in a brief startled fashion.

"What the…" Ed said softly, giving another soft tremor. Ed tried to move one more time before coming to understand his situation, and his expression relaxed into a cool glare of disgust. "Son of a bitch." Ed cussed.

"What?"

Ed shifted his weight as if to move his legs, but his right only shuttered. "I am stuck," Ed said plainly, before the leg shuttered again. "Son of a freaking bitch, I am fucking stuck."

Hohenheim gave a fast nod. "Okay, don't panic."

"I can't fucking believe this." Ed tipped his head back into the rocks. "This is exactly what I am talking about with the tunnel getting tighter." Hohenheim climbed up a foot and extended the lantern. "You know this is a dumb idea, and I am being really good about it."

"I know you are." Hohenheim climbed upward so his shoulders were about Edward's knees and that was as close as they could possibly come with such limited room.

"You're leading us down into a death trap," Ed said, voice escalating just enough Edward's attempt to control it was audible. "In a space that small, I can't move my body well and I can't use my automail." Hohenheim grasped Ed's false ankle and groped cautiously. He needed to understand how the prosthetic was stuck and stroked his hands slowly upward to confirm everything was correct. "I can't use alchemy to free myself. I won't be able to do anything, and we're single file. In that scenario if I got stuck and you couldn't free me, you wouldn't be able to get up, and if it were you, I wouldn't be able to get down." Ed gave Hohenheim's shoulder a strong jab for attention. "Do you realize this? Do you? Have you thought this freaking through? How will you even move the lantern Hohenheim!"

With Hohenheim's hands wrapped about Ed's calf he lifted his gaze and gave an exasperated breath. "Ed," Hohenheim said, sounding tired. Ed threw his eyes to the side with aggravation. "Ed, look at me," Hohenheim asked kindly, reaching up and fisting the front of Ed's coat. He gave a single, but firm little yank. "Look at me." Ed reluctantly returned his gaze. "I know this all already. I know what you're saying is true. I have thought about it, and I understand." Hohenheim gave a small agreeing nod. "So, what would you like to do?" _And this was the question. _"Do you want to leave the tunnel?" Ed's face immediately contorted with opposition. _Leave? Leave! _"Do you want to go back up?" Hohenheim asked. He knew Ed did not want to leave, that Ed certainly did not want to go back up, and so Ed had to relax and abandon the stress he was causing himself thinking about the dangers. If they knew what they were and chose to accept them, then they needed to do so entirely. To get in, the gate required full submission.

"I don't want to go back up," Ed muttered softly, suddenly looking three again. _I don't want to take a nap. _

"Then we need to continue." Hohenheim returned his hands to Ed's calf and felt the piece of rock piercing into it. "I think we can both agree on that." He gave a firm tug, but even with just his fingers analyzing the penetration he could feel the jagged make of the rock hooking Ed's false leg like a barb.

"I am not panicking," Ed whispered, a bit defensively. "I am…speaking."

"I understand." Hohenheim gave a pull with all his strength.

"How am I supposed to know what you've thought of," Ed snapped weakly. "And dying in a stupid dirt tunnel would be pathetically stupid after everything else."

Hohenheim lifted his gaze with a smile, but Ed's sour expression was suitable for something Ed found pathetically stupid.

"I understand, and I appreciate…the conversation," Hohenheim said gracefully. "Are you certain you don't want to ascend?" Ed gave his head a shake. "So you are resigned to continuing the decent." Ed nodded.

"Yes, I want to go down there."

"The tunnel will shrink, and where we are going there won't be light for a while, but you'll be able to move free enough it will be similar to climbing down a ladder. You'll lower yourself a meager amount for each step, because it will be hard to raise your knees, but this section of the tunnel is the last, and it is the shortest." Ed looked relieved and hopeful with this news. "Okay?"

"Okay."

"Good." Hohenheim looked down at Ed's leg. Inside the corduroy pants the prosthetic appeared deceptively thin and flimsy, when it was in fact very strong. He now understood in the slide downward Ed's leg had collided into the sharp piece of rock, and the crunch they heard was either Ed's first attempt to move it, or the rock giving its final slice inside. Still, even with Ed's entire weight, and the gravity of the fall, it was only able to hook inside what seemed a good few inches. A weaker construction might have let it pierce straight through, or worse, broken the leg all together.

"Can you get me off?" Ed asked, after a moment of Hohenheim staring toward Ed's knee in thought. Hohenheim gave his head a soft shake, and Ed frowned. "What do you mean no?"

Hohenheim looked up and considered Ed's angry expression. "Ed, have you ever opened a bottle of Champagne?"

"What?" Ed choked, an expression of baffled shock hiked his eyebrows as high as they would go. "I am under age!"

"Any bottle with a cork then?"

Ed's eyebrows sunk rapidly into a skeptical frown. "A vinegar bottle."

"How did you do it?"

Ed gave an annoyed huff of breath. "With a cork screw."

"When you put the screw into the cork you twist it down tight, yes?"

Ed nodded looking annoyed with the obvious education and impatient for the punch line. "When you try to pull it up, you need to use your entire arm. It can be very difficult."

"Yes, yes, I know that," Ed said impatiently.

"So if it's too hard to pull straight up, you wiggle the cork. You rock the screw from side to side while tugging, and this allows you to rip it out."

Ed rolled his hand elaborately. "I know, that's what I did."

Hohenheim dropped a pointing finger into the top of Ed's false knee. "Your leg is the screw, and the rock you are caught on is the cork." Ed understood this at once. He lifted his gaze to his hands and began tightening his grip. This action confused Hohenheim. He was perplexed Ed misunderstood him so greatly, and said, "I can't pull on you Ed."

"Rip me free," Ed ordered, bracing himself.

"Ed," Hohenheim scolded. "If I take firm hold of one of your anchoring extremities, and pull and jerk it around, what is the percentage of weakness I impose on your frame?"

"I can hang on tight enough," Ed argued. "I'll hang on!"

"_Ed,_" Hohenheim scolded.

Ed snarled. "Probably one-forth! I weigh about a hundred and twenty five pounds, so that makes my leg about thirty one pounds, so that's about twenty four percent, and that's about a forth, and that makes perfect sense because it leaves me with three working limbs." Hohenheim went to argue, but Ed cut him off and held up a finger. "Three working limbs I can use to hang on with." Ed tapped the air with his finger to make his point. Hohenheim let Ed see his disagreement on his face. _This wasn't the problem._ "That's seventy-five percent stability!" Ed cried.

"And how easy is it to wedge yourself with only three limbs?" Hohenheim asked. The problem was, if Ed slipped, it would be near impossible for him to catch himself without the ability to brace with his legs, and because their legs held the majority of their stability, the percent was a bit lower than if all limbs played an equal part.

"You're not taking it off," Ed hissed viciously, looking scared his leg would be taken. "Okay, you're not taking it off."

"Then you're stuck."

"Bullshit I am!" Ed cried. "Pull me off!" Hohenheim gave his head a shake. The risk was too great, they could damage the leg. "Hohenheim! Pull me off!"

"We'll take it off, I'll pull the cork from the bottle, and we'll put it back." Ed's eyes widened fearfully. "It will be a smoothed controlled exercise."

"You could drop it! And that's just as bad as breaking it!"

"And you could fall with a broken leg."

"Into your smug ass!" Ed yelled, before tipping his head back into the wall and knocking it miserably. Bits of clay came loose and sprinkled downward all about Ed's braid.

"Ed, we can stay still and do this together. You can hold the lantern in one hand, and if anything happens, I'll stop us both from falling." Ed kept knocking his head. "You don't need me to tell you which option is safer, or even which option is wiser. It won't hurt to disconnect and reconnect your leg."

Ed's head stopped, and Ed lowered a sullen miserable gaze. "I am not worried about it hurting."

"I promise I won't drop it." Ed did not look appeased. "Even if I do, I'll go and get it." A small flicker of interest leapt across Ed's face. "It won't fall far, and it won't break." This was an outrageous lie, and Hohenheim tried to ignore his dishonesty because his lie was rippling a calm sense of control through Ed's panic. "But I won't drop it anyway, so there is no need to worry." Hohenheim raised the lantern. He was going to move onward from this point of their conversation as quickly as possible. If that meant Ed never actually verbalized consent, that was fine by him.

Ed took the lantern slowly and fit his thumb through the link at the top before replacing his hand. "As soon as it's free put it right back on me." Ed sounded nervous as he lowered his flesh hand to his coat. Hohenheim helped open the buttons and next Ed was opening his pants. As soon as they were undone they dropped quickly to Ed's ankles. Together they carefully took them from Ed's flesh leg so they were stuck entirely on the prosthetic. This was not easy with Ed still in shoes, and Ed cursed as dirt crumbled into the interior of his pants. "This is so freaking stupid," Ed whispered, replacing his foot and standing with his bottom half in the loose legless garb of the German underwear. "I am cold."

About the top of Ed's thigh was a tight leather strap, alone it served as this world's automail port, and would provide all the suspension required to keep it attached. Unlike the arm, which was a basic harness structure, the leg was more involved. Hohenheim had fashioned the top with meticulous detail, so it fit Ed's residual limb like a glove. The connection's perfection was half the attachment design. It kept the socket tight and nearly sucked to Ed's residual limb. For security the leather strap about Ed's thigh connected to a second anchored at his waist. The two linked with garter like straps in the front and back and guaranteed the leg would remain stable and attached if Ed did anything to remove the natural pressure of his weight which sealed it in place.

With Edward's pants down Hohenheim gently disconnected Ed's leather garter straps and slid the prosthetic off Ed's stump with a few acute tugs. It was a simple and quick disconnect. Europe's false limbs did not come with Amestris's metal automail single socket prong, often referred to as the limb's spine. Amestris plugged automail into the constructed port for a sudden impaling sense of nerve shattering shock automail patients described as a flaring pain that exploded suddenly, shot everywhere, and then disappeared like an electrical current. Europe left Ed suddenly one limb lighter, and Hohenheim was able to grasp and twist the false leg with complete mobility. Without Ed's hips anchoring the leg in place, and the weight of Ed's frame limiting movement, Hohenheim twisted the leg upward with a few fast yanks the same way he had opened bottles on New Year's Eve.

The prosthetic came free with another small cracking noise, and Hohenheim turned it over and quickly examined the hole. Ed carefully leaned down to do the same, but there was nothing but a single bullet hole from the stab. "How expensive were these?" Ed asked softly, sounding impressed.

Hohenheim stroked his thumb over the hole and tested to make sure it hadn't weakened the surrounding area of the leg before returning it to Ed's thigh. "I think it's hard to price mobility son," Hohenheim said, connecting the leg smoothly. Ed remained patient as this, and his pants were slipped back onto both legs, before taking over. Ed hiked his pants up eagerly with a frame rattling shiver.

"Okay, keep climbing old man," Ed said, fastening his pants at the speed of light. Hohenheim laughed and prepared to descend. "Go, go, go." Ed waved for action, and they went carefully downward toward the mouth of what Hohenheim recognized as the last and tightest section.

"I want you to go first," Hohenheim said, stopping and looking up."

Ed was crouched in on himself, having lowered downward so his knees were bent as much as possible to remain in the light. "What!"

"That way I am certain you arrive safely."

Ed was annoyed with this. "Oh, are there two spots this tunnel comes out!" Ed said, jesting bitterly. "Just go! I am following!"

Hohenheim worried the entrance, which was at the bottom of the tunnel, would keep Ed from entering. That the last bit of aerobics the gate required before it let you enter, would be too intimidating. Going first, Hohenheim would have the ability to literally shove Ed forward if he found it too difficult.

"Ed, I'd really prefer it if you go first."

"I see that." Ed gave a quick and spiteful grin. "And I don't care."

"There is a small jump at the end."

"I can do it!"

"It looks a bit..." _what was the best way to describe it? _"…threatening."

"I am not a pussy! I can jump!" Hohenheim tried to consider this rationally, but he simply wasn't able to. All he had to go on was Ed's conviction. He had no way of accurately guessing as to how Ed would respond. "I am not kidding! I didn't come all this way to have a stupid little ledge or whatever stop me! I am miles into the ground breathing dirt, fuck that ledge!"

Hohenheim choked a small approving laugh and resumed his descent. Many of Ed's animated states were as humorous as they were delightful for him, and he was smiling in the dim light. The lantern was incredibly hard to hold with so little space, and required he keep his hand always directly parallel his chest so it could hang straight in front of him. He kept a steady pace and Ed began cursing when he squeezed into the narrow coffin width. The only option was to remain vertical, and Hohenheim could feel his breath pushing back at him with the proximity of the tunnel wall before he arrived.

The entrance appeared as a sudden loss of tunnel, and that was what it was. The climb ended, and Hohenheim continued to descend as close to the bottom as he could before managing a tight grip and stepping off the tunnel wall as from a cliff.

Ed heard the noise of Hohenheim's feet scuff off the rocks and looked down. "You okay?" Ed called. For the entire decent their conversation had carried a hallow echo bouncing their voices through the tunnels. Now, with the tunnel suddenly ended, Ed's voice was swallowed up in nothing. There was silence until he spoke, and then all consuming silence again. Ed became nervous with this change. "Hohenheim? Did we make it?"

Ed also sounded excited, and Hohenheim wished he could answer. He was lowering himself downward by his arms as if from a beam, and was holding his breath. With concentration he controlled his movements, keeping them calculated and cautious until he hung, as if on monkey bars, in nothing but blackness. The lantern was not capable of penetrating the massive room, and it was no more than a glow about his hand and face. Once his arms were fully extended, he looked up at the ceiling about the tunnel's exit. It was as rocky as the tunnel interior, and with extreme care he extended his free hand forward and felt about the top for a secure grip. Ed was climbing down above him and with solid purchase Hohenheim traveled outward from the tunnel by a few feet and stopped.

Ready to pause Hohenheim looked toward the tunnel's hole and was just about to begin explaining their arrival when Ed stepped downward into the empty space and almost lost his grip. "Shit!" Ed flailed, and frantically secured a step about the bottom crust of the tunnel. "_Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!_"

"Ed," Hohenheim called. "You're at the bottom."

"Where are you!" Ed sounded frantic. The lantern's light was just lapping at the edge of the hole leaving Ed in the blackened tunnel. "We're separated!"

"We're not separated," Hohenheim reassured softly. "You have not been climbing down to the bottom Edward; you've been climbing down to a top." This was the best way to explain it. The surface entrance led downward until the final tunnel was nothing more than a dangerous shaft with no bottom at all. It could more appropriately be thought of as a chimney from the great room. They had arrived at a pinprick in the massive curving plain of existence. Their dissention had led them, most accurately, to the ceiling.

"I can't find you!" Ed called. Hohenheim could hear Ed's palm sliding about in the dirt searching to make sure there wasn't another tunnel to enter. "I can't see!"

"Close your eyes," Hohenheim said, strengthening his tone into an order. "Close your eyes and listen to my voice." Ed fell silent and Hohenheim gave Ed a moment to calm. Closing his eyes in the darkness would eliminate the natural panic of blindness. "Now where is my voice?" he asked kindly.

"How did you get…" Ed trailed off. "…to my right."

"And can you crawl to the right?"

"Do I need to go up and over, or down and over?" Ed caught on fast. There was no way to climb through rock, and yet he had to go to the right.

"Down and over," Hohenheim said. "But there is no bottom to the tunnel. You're going to climb down as if descending a ladder which no longer has rungs to stand on."

Ed whispered a quick, "Son of a bitch," before his voice firmed with anger. "Hohenheim, we have to work on our communication skills." Hohenheim began a silent chuckle. "I think there is a big disconnect between us and it's all on your end."

"Ed, can you lower yourself?" Hohenheim asked, smiling. "My arms are growing tired."

The lantern illuminated only the mouth of the hole, but it was enough for Hohenheim to see Ed's legs slowly emerging. Ed was coming at a snail's pace with a tight grip inside the tunnel until he was visible from the chest down. Then Ed stalled and Hohenheim realized Ed had his elbows bent when he was lowering and now that he hung straight from his arms, he felt stumped. He was not close enough to the bottom of the tunnel to move out of it. He would have to self lower using just his arms.

"Have you ever rock climbed before Ed?" Hohenheim asked, mentally scolding himself for not preemptively talking Ed through appropriate maneuvers to avoid this. _Somehow parenting was far more obvious in hindsight._

"No," Ed croaked, sounding worried with his predicament, but not yet ready to request help.

"When you do you use all four limbs, but sometimes you use just your arms. Right now you need to think about having just arms. Consider your legs an extension of your torso, and just like with a ladder, you're going to keep descending." Ed's breathing was becoming audible and it was panic. Ed was discovering he could not pull himself up enough he'd be able to regain his legs for support, and nor did he seem able to lower himself. "Are you hanging tight to the wall?"

"I am going to fall!" Ed cried, twitching slightly where he hung. "Shit, I messed up. I am stuck, I can't move," Ed whispered, thinking frantically and coming up with no solutions. "Shit, I'll fall, my arms will grow too tired!"

"Ed," Hohenheim interrupted, trying to gain Ed's attention. Ed lifted a knee slightly and Hohenheim saw the through process. Ed was going to try and curl upwards and use the ceiling and his arms in a desperate attempt to secure himself enough to get back in the tunnel. "Ed!" Hohenheim snapped fiercely. "Pay attention to me only. Your legs are now part of your torso, don't try and use them."

"You know the last thing I want from you is you wiping my ass, but I…" Ed trailed off sounding desperate. "I need…"

"You don't need help," Hohenheim said angrily. "You're a scientist. You're a national state alchemist, aren't you!" Hohenheim adjusted his grip on the ceiling as best he could. His arms were aching and he had not wanted to stress them so greatly before the fall. "Now you have the unfair advantage of a false limb. Use it! Clamp down on the wall with your false hand Ed."

"I can't feel it well!" Ed lifted his knee ever so slightly before replacing it. "I can't understand the grip!"

"Clamp down with that hand, it's strong."

"Okay." Ed's stridulous voice was whiny.

"Now, you slowly release your grip with the other."

Inside the tunnel, Ed was hanging flush to the wall, with his cheek resting in the hard dry clay and loose dirt puffing into his face with each breath. He had gravely miscalculated and lowered himself over two feet from the bottom. Now with his arms stretched high overhead his shoulder was beginning to throb.

"Ed, slowly release your false hand and lower it downward. Find a grip as close to the bottom of the tunnel as you can manage and clamp on tight. You're going to anchor yourself with your false arm as if hanging yourself from a butcher hook, you understand? With a tight grip, the false arm won't feel the stress your flesh arm will and you can hang from it." Ed released his false grip and felt below him in frantic passes. "Now keep you flesh hand tight until the grip is secured. Then, you can lower yourself slowly. You will release with your flesh hand, and using the grip of your false, descend as if from a chin up. Let your weight fall onto the butcher hook it will become."

Ed slid his false hand over the sharp bits of rock and dirt. Breathing hysterically he felt blindly for anything he could grasp before locking his hand around a curve of rock. Now a chin up. _How long had it been since he'd done one!_

"What if I can't hold my weight!" Ed cried, feeling torn with both arms in two different directions and his weight hanging from the flesh arm above him. He had weak control of the false limb and had never tested it.

"You'll hold it." Hohenheim's tone was none negotiable. He looked down, but there was nothing but blackness below them, and he didn't want to think about Ed suddenly falling. He made his voice angry and forceful. "You hold it Edward, do you understand me!" He had not used such a tone since Edward was very young.

Despite the boys Trisha had been trying to make them a romantic dinner, and they separated from the children as much as possible. This consisted of them eating at the kitchen table which they'd pushed up against the window, with the boys still in earshot and set in the living room to play. While exchanging romantic words Alphonse gave a cry neither of them recognized and Trisha left quickly.

That afternoon, for a reason Hohenheim thought he'd never understand, Ed who was just a bit older than Alphonse decided it would be fun to lie on his brother. Alphonse was under a quilt thrashing in an attempt to breathe and cry, but Ed was oblivious. In a child's ignorance Ed was laying on the squirming lump of blankets that was Alphonse playing with blocks.

Trisha gave a controlled but frightened scream when she understood Alphonse could not breathe. She pulled Ed up and dragged Alphonse from beneath the blankets and into a hysterical hug.

At her side Hohenheim remembered reaching down with something very close to red anger, and grabbing Edward's pudgy arm. _You do not do that again!_ he had ordered furiously. _Do you understand me! _

Ed slowly began relaxing his flesh hand and simultaneously his false arm was taking the weight until it was shaking and he was sinking downward rapidly. His arm was not strong enough in this tight space, and ill prepared to hold himself in an upward push up. Ed crashed down at chest height of his new grip and searched frantically, sweating the cold sweat of fear, for a new grip.

The tunnel was uneven, and as it had been their entire descent the rocks were everywhere. In low panic, Ed grabbed the first thing he could and stabilized his movement with both arms.

"Keep going!" Hohenheim snapped having watched Ed's body lower and stop. "Your arms will become tired if you rest!"

Ed inhaled a puff of dirt and began wildly lowering himself and grabbing whatever he could find until he could feel the wind of the room gently upon his chest. It was cool, and gave the refreshing inclination of freedom from the tunnel. As he moved, it slipped over his collar bone, chin, and then his face until he was hanging straight down from the hole.

Emerging in a sea of blackness, Hohenheim was nothing but a speck of light hanging from the ceiling. In the dim glow, with the breeze tossing his bangs Hohenheim offered a small welcoming smile to Ed's blanched and terrorized expression. "Are your arms very tired?" he asked softly.

Ed swallowed the deep swallow of a shaken man. "I want to get down."

Hohenheim gave a nod and looked toward his lantern. "I am going to blow it out, because fire is dangerous, and then I am going to let go." Ed's face contorted with alarm and he looked down quickly. It was impossible to make out what was below them. With the lantern barely able to penetrate more than a few feet, it were as if they were submerged in ink, and the blackness made the void infinite. "When I land, and stand up, I will relight it, and all you need to do is the same."

"Christ Hohenheim," Ed hissed. "This was your small leap! _This!_" Ed cried. "Why didn't you warn me!" Ed kicked with a bit of panic. "Why didn't you _tell _me!"

"Because," Hohenheim said softly. "I tried to imagine what I would have done if I found this place and knew what to expect before I encountered it. I tried to imagine all the things I would have decided I might not be able to do before I was suddenly forced to do them, and I decided letting you experience it unknowing, and as your own, was the best way."

Ed was furious. "You can't make adult decisions for me!" Ed screamed. "You can't decide what is the best way for me! _I decide that!" _Ed sputtered a few sounds of indignation, as if too angry to think straight. "You don't know me well enough to even chance at getting this right! _I need to know what I am doing!_" Hohenheim felt he could understand Ed's horror walking blindly into such oddity, and while in such poor health, but what he was saying went deeper than the words he was using. It had much more to do with Ed not being able to mentally imagine what he would try to explain, and even more with it simply sounding unbelievable.

"I understand," Hohenheim said softly, putting this to rest. "But now you're forced to jump." Ed looked down and whimpered out a soft sound. "Your arms simply cannot hold you."

"You're a fucking asshole!" Ed screamed, tossing his head back and looking up for anything he might grip with more ease. "Where is the bottom!"

"Ten or so feet."

"_Ten or so feet!_" Ed screamed. "I am going to beat the shit out of you when we get down there!"

"Probably closer to fifteen, so let your legs buckle when you land."

"This is god damn unbelievable."

"My arms are very tired Ed," Hohenheim said, lifting himself slowly to the lantern. He blew it out in one puff, and Ed disappeared into blackness. "When you are ready, just release your hands. You'll fall straight down." In the dark Ed became worse and escalated to small panicked noises with each exhale.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Ed cried suddenly. "Let's do it together, we can count." Ed sounded more relaxed, and even hopeful with this idea. "I mean…" They couldn't see each other in the darkness. Ed was just a voice close by. "I can't see where I am falling. I can't see what I am aiming for!"

"It's more dangerous that way." Hohenheim relaxed his grip and slid down with his fingers uncurling. "You'll be fine. Last time the floor was not far."

"Last time!" Ed screamed.

Hohenheim let go with his arms numb. For a moment he was weightless until the marble came up and smacked him. It was unmerciful, the hardest surface he could hope to land on, and slick so when he fell he rolled and did all he could to stop himself before he fell off the edge.

* * *

Goodness it's nice to be back, two weeks is a long time! I hope you all enjoyed Chapter 12. We're moving steadily forward and we will pick up some serious speed these next few chapters (I am so nervous).

On that note – **please review!** I haven't heard from you guys in a two full weeks! My love to you consistant reviewers: (_ai-eleanor, Drifter, VeryliTTle39k, Lilly, AwesomatoligicalHaliBug, 90008BlankConsid, TheGreatSecret, Joker Oak, INSPIREme, Time To Kill, kash30032000, Calliequest, DemiXXI, Redtippdscissors, awesomenaruto, miawpyon_), who give me fantastic weekends, with your comments coming in like gems. To those of you leaving unsigned reviews, it's sad I can't respond to you personally but I thank you all. Mikai that includes you, your review was amazing.

Also - Happy Easter everyone! I know I may be jumping the gun as we're only on Chapter 12, but my profile now has a detailed outline of the stories I have pending for posting and in-progress. I don't know what's going up after The Silent Heart, so if you like my writing style, feel free to check it out and tell me if one strikes your fancy J

See you next week! Chapter 13: _Act Change_ will be up 4/5/13.

_(Okay, now don't be shy, go ahead and review in the box below. If you're reading and feel like you suck at reviews (as I often feel) a simple statement (any true statement) is appreciated. To all of you who simply say "good job" or "please write more"…you are great)._


	13. Act Change

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Thirteen  
_Act Change_

- mirage -

It felt a drop for miles but in reality Hohenheim understood it to be a manageable amount. It was not a drop from the ceiling to the floor of the room. That would have been a trapeze artist's fatal plummet from the tiny worm hole from which they'd emerged. This fall, was the simple near second story hop from the surface orifice to the top of an Ionic column.

In the darkness it was little more than ground to stand on, but Hohenheim knew it was white. A brilliant white marble column standing up from the city and lopped three quarters of the way down, as if beheaded by a massive broadsword. The gorgeous Romanesque capital, which formed the top in two brilliant swirls, was now along side the column's base where it plummeted through the roof and down to the first story of the house sitting there. When Hohenheim first discovered it he could barely get the front door to open with the marble locking him out.

In this area, below the hole they had entered, there were two pillars, and in other parts of the city, there were the remains of others, but to Hohenheim's knowledge these were the only two with so much intact, and with the first mainly upright. Like the extending hand of the gate, it gave one single, and difficult, way to manage entrance if you could figure out how to do so. Once on top of the first pillar, the only route down was through use of the second.

This neighboring pillar had toppled into the first one, as if shoved over. Where the columns had hit, the tipping pillar was cracked but securely wedged with its own weight. This allowed you to step off the top of the first pillar and slide down the side of the second. It was a controllable angle that ended, much like a dangerous marble slide, smack up against a quaint two-story colonial.

Through the second story bedroom window of this colonial, Hohenheim liked to enter. It allowed the game to begin under the semblance of safe shelter, rather than exposure to the outdoors. Like a rat fed into a maze, the marble tower stretching up like a palm to catch you, was the first step to lead you in. The gate had established one very clear entrance and one very clear exit. Everything else was sealed.

Hohenheim managed to his feet and took a few large breaths. If the fall did not knock the wind from you, it came very close, and heading any further downward while short of breath was not something he wanted.

Ed was left alone in the darkness of the ceiling, and when Hohenheim dropped and silenced completely Ed felt a new type of panic take hold of him. Once again he was in this world without true knowledge of his whereabouts, and worse than before when they arrived in Kempten, he was now below the Earth's surface. "Hohenheim!" Ed yelled down into the darkness. His voice brought the smallest echo against the houses below them. Dragging his vowels, as if yelling across a valley, Ed called a loudly, "Hey! You asshole!" Hohenheim was struggling to catch his breath so he could answer. "You bastard!" Ed began moving, and Hohenheim fished for his matches. He could hear Ed's hands scuffing against the rocks in search of a route to follow. "_Oh my god,_" Ed whimpered. "Fuck." Ed was talking to himself. "Oh my god, _fuck, fuck, fuck_." Hohenheim looked up licking his lips. He wanted to call out but his body wasn't there yet. "I hate you Hohenheim! I_ really _hate you!"

"Ed," Hohenheim muttered, clearing his throat to raise his voice. He managed the matches from his pocket and lit one in a snapping pop of sudden flame. He became the beckon of a lighthouse in nothingness. "I am ten to fifteen feet down," Hohenheim lifted the match and looked up. To Ed he was nothing more than a barely visible eye and cheek stubble near a faint glow.

Hohenheim panned the match about himself to gather how much space there was to the edge. The size of the pillar made the top approximately several feet wide, and near the far edge he saw the lantern.

A sudden whoosh of motion and thud hit the marble to Hohenheim's right, and he startled with surprise. He lowered the match quickly and was just able to catch Ed landing on his feet and crumbling forward to his side in the dim light. Ed broke out coughing, and Hohenheim stared in a moment of indecisive shock. _Years ago, decades ago, centuries ago…was he too this stubborn and impulsive?_

"You…" Ed rasped, pushing himself up to hands and knees barely able to speak. "…fucker." Hohenheim walked to the lantern which had rolled dangerously close to the edge. The metal loop was hanging off, and the glass door had opened but not broken. He had hung tight to it when he dropped, and he relit it now. "…what's your problem?" Ed wheezed, managing to kneel while rubbing at his chest. "…crying wolf…like…that?"

Hohenheim knelt at Ed's side and pointed toward the edge. "We're on a circle." He spun his finger in a loop so Ed would understand to be weary of the edge, but Ed ignored this and snatched the front of his coat.

"This shit…" Ed was huffing quick dainty breaths to be kind to his chest. "…you pull."

Hohenheim grabbed Ed's chin and jerked Ed's face to look toward the edge where he pointed. "The edge Edward, be careful of the edge."

Ed was panting from the fall and exertion of the climb until sudden realization of the table top they had dropped onto stopped his breath and dropped his jaw. "What if we had missed!" Ed turned to Hohenheim in shock.

Hohenheim smiled with appreciation for a good old fashion challenge. The type of life staking challenge the gate gave and demanded. "Then we wouldn't be standing here," he said. He left Ed's expression of baffled outrage, and went to the edge and examined the column which had collided with their own. Its marble surface was flawless and he reached down and gave it a forceful shove, but it was still as immobile as ever.

Ed still hadn't moved and was viciously rubbing the front of his chest while taking in their surroundings.

"Ed, to get to the bottom we're going to slide down this pillar." Hohenheim indicated the edge with a point, and Ed looked over.

"What's below us?" Ed asked flatly, relaxing his gaze into one of annoyed frustration so much of this journey was being introduced as surprises.

Hohenheim considered the question. It was hard to explain. "A city." Ed did not respond to this statement. It made no sense, and Hohenheim understood Ed's calm demeanor was a level of agitated acceptance with no way to logically combat what seemed illogical. "Along side of where we stand an identical pillar has fallen into this one, and we can slide down it to the base which is propped along a building. From there we climb into the second story window."

Ed averted his gaze the way one being fed a line of bullshit turns to stare in annoyance out at nothing. What Hohenheim said didn't make sense, but the asinine variable to all of this, was that Hohenheim was right about everything he said, and Ed hated it. Against his every desire he was being lead blindly through a world he could not understand while trapped by his own despised dependence. Rising inside him was a need for defiance and he tried to suppress it as much as he could but it was nearly impossible. "That doesn't make sense." Ed couldn't take it anymore. "Where are we? Why is this here?"

"The pillar?" Hohenheim asked, with surprise. This question seemed out of place considering how absolutely astounding their surroundings were.

"_Yes, the pillar_," Ed hissed. "I thought we were…" Ed lost a bit of his anger with confusion. "I thought we were under the ground. We _are _under the ground. I climbed down here with you." None of this made sense. How was a cavern like this supported beneath the forest! Where was all the water and the roots of the plants! Where was the dirt, and why was a man made structure, something as gaudy and deliberate as a white marble roman pillar, left behind this way!

Ed could see Hohenheim standing in the glow of the lantern, but it was hard to read the man's expression. It looked patient but it also seemed firm with conviction as if Hohenheim had already decided what he was doing here, and Ed felt a growing anxiety that was true. "You're bringing me with you, but you're only doing what you want to do. I am not just some dog you get to lead around, you understand!" Ed said angrily. "I am a person Hohenheim, and I expect you to communicate what we're doing. I need to know what _I _am doing. I need to know where we're going."

"We're going down to the city."

"What city!" Ed demanded, opening his arms into the darkness. "Are you saying that rather than dirt and rocks below us there is actually a city down there in the dark!" Hohenheim didn't answer, and Ed felt his confusion give way to foolishness. _Yes, that was what was being said. Pay attention Edward._ "I am paying attention!" Ed snapped, fighting against what felt suspiciously like disappointed disapproval coming forward.

Suddenly, and simultaneously with the move from the ceiling to the pillar, the air seemed to carry more than the few molecules Ed was so familiar with. He felt as if his own emotions were rising off him like steam, and so were Hohenheim's. It was assaulting, and suddenly Ed felt as if Hohenheim did not think he was paying as much attention to his thoughts and actions as he should. _Sound out the word and pronounce it Edward. I won't tell you what it is. _"I am god dammit," Ed said, arguing against Hohenheim's silence. "I am listening to what you're saying!"

"Not well Edward."

Ed balked and struggled to his feet. "Well what you're saying doesn't make sense to me! You say we're going to a city, that we can, what? Slide down a pillar into the second story of a house? Into someone's house? Pillars are not constructed from homes Hohenheim, and if that pillar is like ours than the simple diameter would not get us to the second story window! You said it was identical, so this is nonsense!" Ed felt a fast drop in Hohenheim satisfaction of him, like a thermometer falling twenty degrees and he physically twitched with the sensation. What he was catching only a glimmer of before seemed to fully manifest. It was a true and very real sense of disappointment now.

"Ed," Hohenheim said gently. He had seen Ed flinch with what he could not hide. "I am a bit tired, and I do not mean this in the wrong way, but you are a tad exhausting." Ed's relentlessness was overwhelmingly tiresome, and Hohenheim was learning it was difficult to repeat himself. Suddenly he was remembering a familiar sense of aggravation Trisha never had. _They are just children_, she would say laughing. No matter what the question Trisha would repeat herself again and again with only sweet and loving reminders she had given her instructions before. She did not grow tired with this routine the way he did. Edward and Alphonse's inability to accept things the first time, and the constant repetition they needed, did not wear on her. As their mother she was attentive, but he could not easily stomach the uselessness they made of logic. There were only so many ways to explain things, and he had a lot of practice doing so clearly the first time.

"Ed, you look rather befuddled," Hohenheim said, studying Ed in the flickering light. Ed's expression had twisted up in extreme discomfort. "As if you're hearing something you don't want to hear." And that was the truth of it. "And you think I am being harsh." And that was the hell of it.

Ed glanced up to the ceiling and they both heard his thought: _I want to leave! _The notion came quickly, rashly, and then disappeared with a stubborn unwillingness to give up. "This…" Ed managed, trying to pull himself together. It was unnerving how calm Hohenheim was and Ed felt the fool in comparison. "This is much easier for you than it is for me because you have practice." _Don't forget this is my first time._

"I know it is your first time Ed." Ed bristled with Hohenheim's astute response. "But I am a scientist, and I raised one, even though I only had a few years in which to do it in." Hohenheim neared the edge and knelt to step off onto the connecting pillar. He knew these words would strike Ed hard, and in many ways it felt as if he'd just thrown a rock into the window of a burning house. The back draft of Edward's response was wild.

"How dare you!" Ed stormed to Hohenheim's side. "You think existing for the few meager years of my life while I was still busy learning to count and spell equates to parenting? You think you get to take credit for the scientist I am!"

Hohenheim set the lantern aside and slid onto the pillar facing Ed. He held it tightly with his thighs as if straddling a downed tree. "I certainly don't intend to if you can't stand still long enough to apply scientific reasoning to how this pillar will reach the second story of a house."

Ed was going to explode. "_You're such an officious prick!_" Ed screamed.

"Ed, hold on tight and travel down slowly. If you fall from this height it will do more than break your leg." Hohenheim began a slow controlled slide downward ignoring Edward's outburst.

"I'll break _your _leg!" Ed screamed, acting on autopilot and preparing to slide onto the pillar. Hohenheim ignored this. Ed's soul was responding to the surroundings like an electrical outlet meeting water. It was more than just an outpour it was a violent sparking. Ed was feeling it, and what's more, he was feeling it ricochet back and responding badly. Hohenheim imagined this would feel much like someone yelling your own thoughts and emotions at you.

Ed was gripping the pillar for all he was worth and mumbling and swearing to himself. The closer they came to where they were going the more Ed was determined to get there. With all that was happening he refused to acknowledge the part of himself becoming very scared. Floating into the air of the environment was both of them, but with them was also something else. It gave the sensation of standing on ice over shark infested waters. There was something incredibly lurking about their blackened environment, and it was a deep seeding fright that came naturally the same way a small animal knows to fear a big one.

When they were a few feet from the house Hohenheim looked up at the lantern. It sat twinkling atop the pillar. He knew they would not need it soon, and he also knew left behind it would disappear just like all those before it. No matter what he brought and left, the world took it, and there was never any evidence upon return.

"Hohenheim?" Ed muttered softly, peeking back over his shoulder with their decent almost complete. In the dark Ed was barely visible.

"Yes?" Hohenheim reached behind himself and felt blindly for the house. Carefully he let himself slip backward in small two foot allotments ready for the brick to meet his fingers. "No, I don't think you're loosing your mind Ed."

Ed flinched uncomfortably. "Stop doing that," Ed whispered, trying to fight away the naked feeling of ridiculed exposure.

"I am not ridiculing you Ed."

"Stop I said!" Ed snapped. _Edward, never having seen a word before does not mean you do not know how to read it. Because you know the sounds of letters, you know all words already._

Hohenheim felt the brick meet his fingers at the same time he felt as if he had to report to someone much larger and greater than himself with little hope of meeting even an adequate standard. It brought the overwhelming feeling of failure, as if he were reporting his trivial thoughts to a god. This stunned him, and he let himself sink back against the house and rest. _Did he cause such a response deep inside Edward's mind? Did his banishment to this plane leave Ed feeling as if he was left because he was not worth staying with? _

Hohenheim looked to Ed who slid down to meet him and caught himself before they collided. Ed had become dramatically inverted and silent in the last minute and Hohenheim felt a rush of shame overwhelm him. He was dragging his son to the center of the Earth, to give Ed everything he could, and yet all they seemed to be doing was stirring up the muddy bottom between them.

"Before we go any further," Hohenheim said softly. He felt a need to reach Edward as much as possible, and Edward seemed to need this mainly on a verbal level. He needed to be provided with explanation. Although much of it would not make sense, such as a random pillar standing below the Earth's surface, for Ed it was about taking the time to at least try.

"No, I don't have any questions," Ed retorted, with only a fraction of the anger which had existed moments ago. "I am not asking about the lantern, you know where it is, so I assume you left it there on purpose."

Hohenheim smiled widely. In just the course of a minute Ed was learning quickly how to walk the tight wire that was the playground of the gate.

"I am not learning anything," Ed said. "I am simply keeping my thoughts from being broadcasted like the moronic ramblings of a condemnable god damn idiot." Ed was disgusted with the babbling mess his mind made spilling outward in radio frequency. Ed rubbed his hand down his face, and knowing Ed had no further questions Hohenheim would have felt confident continuing if there wasn't still a lingering sense of something Edward wanted to do. With their close proximity Hohenheim tried to hear what it was, but it felt like a soft sleepy mutter in the air, as if Ed could not fully make up his mind on whether he would act.

"Entasis," Ed blurted quickly, looking a bit embarrassed. "The top of a column reduces in size by some eighty percent to compensate for entasis in the design." For a moment Hohenheim was struck with surprise Ed was defending his scientific knowledge, before a sudden bought of laugher rose up his throat. Ed ignored this and continued. "I understand some of this is to compensate for the visual appearance of being straighter, but also that much of it is done for equilibrium by considering the elasticity of the material, the inertia, length and a few other variables. That means if we landed on a diameter almost ten feet, the base will be that much larger, and allow us to easily get to a second story window." Ed sounded a bit sour with himself for feeling a need to prove he had the skills to figure this out, but also hopeful this would help combat the sensation of disappointment he just had to stomach.

Ed wanted to change something. That sensation was very clear, and Hohenheim had a sneaking suspicion it was their opinion of each other.

Hohenheim, laughing, dropped a heavy hand onto the top of Ed's head. "You feel like I am leading, because you are letting me lead," he said softly, and this was true. "You know you are out of your element Edward." This couldn't be more true. "But you need to have faith in yourself and your science. This world's puzzles are made of the same pieces, and you shouldn't forget that."

Ed dropped his gaze and tried to absorb the good advice without seeming grateful for it.

"And when I first arrived here, I was no where near my level of composure so…" Hohenheim gave a teasing shrug. "Maybe I am being harsh. I apologize." Ed didn't like the apology and they both felt it. "Don't scold me for apologizing." Hohenheim teased, using the house as a crutch as he rose to his feet. "To err is human."

Ed felt a smile ghost over his face before he could stop himself. "I didn't know you had a sense of humor old man."

Hohenheim reached up to the familiar window, and although he left it open every time, it was closed upon every return. "It's short lived I am afraid." He hefted it up easily, and placed his palms on the chest high ledge. "There's no furniture you need to be weary of, and when you enter the house the sun in this world is going to rise, and you will be able to see."

"Oh, that's awesome!" Ed sounded relieved and excited.

Hohenheim worked himself over the window ledge and dropped a leg onto the old wooden floor. "The best way to describe it will be like a curtain rising for a play." Ed grabbed the window ledge and heaved himself up easily in his youth. "Have you seen a play in theater?" _Maybe this wasn't the best way to describe it._

"No." Ed pulled himself in and clamored to his feet. Ed bent over and rested his hands on his knees. "I am not that artsy-fartsy Hohenheim."

In theater, the darkened audience is suddenly greeted with the stage illuminating slowly. As the curtain rises the scenery gradually comes into focus, and the actors on stage remain frozen until the lighting is entirely ready. In many ways it is as if the performance defrosts into reality, and in this place, that was the only way to explain it.

"Can you visualize what I am saying?" Hohenheim asked, feeling a rush of true alarm. If Ed could not wrap his head around this concept, the occurrence might be terrifying. Hohenheim imagined it would bring the mind rattling fear giving a telescope to a caveman would bring. It would not be the enlightenment of learning to see further, it would be the fear the Earth was suddenly advancing on top of you.

"Well I grasp what you're…saying…" Ed said, trailing off and looking up with an expression of worry. Hohenheim's blooming concern was like a swarm of bees streaming from the hive that was his body. "What is it?" Ed asked nervously. Ed felt the apprehension, and it wasn't so much as apprehension for their current well being, as for their well being after something new arrived. "What's wrong? What's dangerous?" Hohenheim rushed to Ed to grasp his shoulders, but Ed jerked back with raising nerves. "What!" Ed snapped, looking about for their danger. Ed took a step back, to place space between them, and instinctively assumed the pose of a skilled fighter ready to defend himself. Hohenheim followed Ed, taking a step forward when Ed moved, and unintentionally backed Ed against the wall of the small room.

"I want you to shut your eyes Ed, shut them now," Hohenheim ordered, grabbing Ed's shoulders tightly. The gate would focus on Ed if it thought he was their weakest link. It would frighten him on purpose because it hungered for misery above all else.

Ed's eyes were darting about the room and just like the rising sun a white winter glow, what would be called florescent in years to come, began at the base of the window and was steadily rising. The curtain was lifting and Hohenheim raised his hand to lay it over Ed's eyes and cover them, but he was not fast enough. Ed blocked his hand. The light had dimly lit half the room and the window they had left open was now closed. With the stage not fully in focus the show had already started, and Hohenheim felt himself being taken in.

It was a quiet settling feeling each time. A true resignation. They had committed themselves to an uncertain outcome by arriving, and below their feet the motionless Earth seemed to shift as if alive and waking up. The gate's eyes opened in complete acknowledgement of them, and they, having been warned before making it this far, had nothing left in defense or hope. The sensation of their thoughts lifting into the air upon the pillar would be nothing in comparison to the gate's true circus.

"Ed, shut your eyes, you're not ready to look." Hohenheim tried again, but Ed's gaze had stopped darting and was transfixed over his shoulder.

"Wait a second," Ed whispered, catching Hohenheim's advancing hand and keeping his own up to shield his face from any further advances. Ed wanted to see. He had caught a glimpse and in doing so the gate had grabbed him. Its power was mesmerizing, and its only goal was to lure you in a subdued captivation right into its mouth.

Along the back wall, in the right corner of the room, Ed was staring at the outdoor brick bleeding into the mortar of the interior wall as if someone had pushed them straight through. The color he imagined them to have, a deep red, an old brown, the flecking unevenness of their surface casting small shadows into the color to darken it, was lost. Instead the planks of the wooden floor, the simple plaster of the interior walls, and the bricks coming through were a faint but unmistakable ash color. It was a perfect flawless color and Ed recognized it from the fire pits he had made with Alphonse during alchemy training. In the morning the fire that had been so intense the night before was nothing but a pile of dry gray power.

"The pillar must have…pushed the bricks…" Ed's gaze was lifting, following the bricks upward with confusion because their indentations were petering out as the wall rose. It were as if the outside and inside walls had combined along the bottom right side of the room before the house realized bricks did not belong inside and it corrected mid wall. Hohenheim saw Ed's eyes lift to the ceiling and widen, and he knew Ed was seeing the support beams twist inward without the slightest break in their rigid structure. The room was swirling to an awkward slope toward the left side as if the tiny bedroom was made of dough. The roof was bent downward so the right side was raised and the left side was crippled and crunching inward. "…wow…" Ed whispered, tracing the room with a wide captivated gaze. They were inside an architectural impossibility and Ed's gaze continued down the left wall which was buckled and rippled in the same smooth undulating fashion as the ocean floor.

Hohenheim tried again to cover Ed's eyes, but Ed stopped his hand. Ed was studying the wall's connection to the floor and noticing the perfection. There was not a speck of dust or dirt. The room was so impeccably clean it seemed dreamlike before in the back left corner was a small wooden stool, and on it, a half empty glass of milk. Hohenheim knew Ed saw the milk the minute Ed's face twisted with immediate confusion.

Ed jerked to the side and disengaged from Hohenheim to better see. "What is…" Ed said softly, stepping into the room. Behind them, along the window where they had entered easily, was now a small dilapidated iron bed. Its frame was twisted, the mattress inside was shredded. The sheets were the same faded ash color, but the children's print was unmistakable. Ed walked to the stool and milk and looked down at the glass. The milk was not spoiled and the cup was clean. "Hohenheim?" Ed looked up and startled on sight of the bed in the room. Hohenheim felt Ed's emotions change from deep curiosity to rapid confusion. "Did we climb over that?" Ed asked, looking back toward the milk.

"Ed, it is like a camera coming into focus." This was the next best way to describe it. "Have you ever seen or used a camera son?" Until the curtain was entirely lifted, things would continue coming to be. In theater the term Blocking Rehearsals defined rehearsals emphasizing stage placement and movement overseen or dictated by the director. This was another way to explain it, and Hohenheim felt a bit lost with Ed's ill exposure to the arts. Inside the belly of the massive cavern made by the gate, they stood on its stage, and it controlled everything but them. This gave them the advantage of their free will and mobility, and the disadvantage of being surrounded by nothing but the enemy.

The tip of the room was just getting light when along the stool and Ed's foot a small unmistakable footprint of a young child appeared. Ed startled and stepped back quickly with its sudden appearance and Hohenheim felt Ed's mind disconnect from his.

Hohenheim was familiar with the manner in which he responded to the gate's rising curtain. Every time it caused a slowed sense of himself. His arrival, following the beginning of the gate's performance, felt like a slow exhale to a new calm state, but this seemed to be very different from what Ed was experiencing. Instead the curtain rising was a siren for Ed, and Hohenheim felt as if he were drugged against Ed's growing internal volume. Somehow today's calming effect was stronger than all the others, and Hohenheim was beginning to worry it was on purpose. To make it difficult for him to stay by Ed's side, to separate them, to handicap him so Ed might be easily won.

"Ed," Hohenheim said quickly, reaching for the boy. This was not a place in which rational concepts could be applied, and Ed was suddenly thinking, worried, about a child, an abandoned child. "Ed, come here." The gate was aware of them, and with excitement, it was trying to come between them.

Ed was very close to the open bedroom doorway and leaned out as if the child would be in sight. "Are there people here!" Ed exclaimed, entering the hall after assuring himself it was clear. Ed called loudly into the house, "Hello!"

"No, there are no people here," Hohenheim said, following quickly. The colonial's interior had an open two story parlor, so their hallway was outlined with a railing which looked onto the foyer below.

"There is a kid here!" Ed said, heading quickly for the stairs. "That milk isn't rotten! How is that possible if there isn't someone here!"

"There is no one here Ed. This place is deserted."

"Are you sure there are no people here!" Ed walked quickly to the stairs. They were littered with belongings and Ed froze in his tracks. Down the left side where children's toys: stuffed animals, blocks, books, and crayons with all of it and everything in the color of ash. Mingled about on the steps was a woman's high heeled shoe, the beads of a shattered pearl necklace, and unidentifiable bits of what might have been wood. "What is all this?" Ed whispered, stepping carefully onto the first step between a stuffed bear and large block with the letter G.

"Ed, listen to me," Hohenheim said in a firm warning tone. Next to restraining Ed physically was reaching him mentally. "There are no people here." Ed was half way down the stairs and creeping forward with the care of one sneaking around a bear. The shower of intimate items was unsettling and Ed was being very careful not to touch any of them. "Ed, I need you to pay attention to what I am saying." Some of the railing's banisters had been busted as if kicked outward. Towards the bottom of the wall was a dragging adult hand print running at an upward angle that was impossible. "This place is entirely empty. I have never met anyone here." Ed was carefully crossing over a clean step housing only a perfectly shaped upright women's open lipstick tube dead center. "What you're seeing is what was, or perhaps what might have been, I am not sure."

"How do you explain the milk then?" Ed asked, reaching down the banister trying to get free of the stairs. At the bottom there were a few more footprints, and on the floor someone had written the word ROUND in all capital letters with the D backwards.

"It is just a part of the place." Hohenheim came to realize Ed was getting away with a jolting sensation of alarm he hadn't yet tried to intervene. With his handicap it was just now becoming apparent to him Ed was downstairs, and he quickly rushed forward taking precautions on the stairs but with Ed his single priority.

Ed stumbled into the parlor with his jaw hanging open and his eyes following the left wall which had human hand prints crawling up it and into half the ceiling before disappearing. The roof of the house, like that of the bedroom, was pulled in an odd shape and half way through the parlor the floor turned into an extreme tilt. It was an architectural anomaly molded of more fantasy than science. In the threshold leading into the connecting room a center drain claw foot bathtub was on its side, and behind that a ladder with a metal pail ready for sap harvesting was growing from the middle of the floor upward into the ceiling of the room.

"Just stay where you are Ed," Hohenheim said, fighting what felt like an overwhelming sleep coming to him. The gate was trying to sedate him, he was certain of it. The air felt like a gas pushing him from consciousness, but for Ed, it was hastily driving him into excited movement.

"What happened to the people who lived here?" Ed asked, voice soft and distracted. He stood in the middle of the parlor looking near catatonic as he absorbed the stunning visual. "Did they die? They must have died." Hohenheim was not sure if people ever truly lived in this place. "Is the entire house like this?"

"Yes." Hohenheim reached for the banister. To explain things to Ed, he would need to explain his conclusions about their environment without hinting to the fact they were being manipulated by the unseen force of the gate. He thought this concept would be too frightening for someone who had that same unseen force rip off his limbs and steal his brother. In baby steps he would have to explain what was until he could show Ed the rest.

"What happened here?" Ed asked, taking a few slow steps back from the middle of the parlor.

"I am not sure."

"You didn't try to help these people?" Ed asked, turning a look of accusing horror toward Hohenheim's sluggish body. "Why didn't you come help them! You might have been the only person who could have! You're the only person who knew they were here!"

"They were not here when I first arrived." Hohenheim made it to the bottom of the stairs and reached slowly toward Ed's body. It had taken him close to a minute to descend the stairs Ed managed in seconds. Now he was too far away to touch Ed, both of them knew it, but reaching was all he could do. "No one was, no one has ever been. The entire city is empty."

"The city," Ed repeated, turning a newly captivated gaze toward the door. Hohenheim saw Ed walking for it, and his heart leapt up his throat.

"Stop Ed!" He ordered, staggering a few drunken steps forward. "Let go of me," he whispered, speaking to the gate. "Let go of me." The grip on him weakened but the gate knew its limits and didn't want to obey him because it did not entirely have to. "Ed!" Ed walked to the front door and tried the locked knob. "Stay in the house."

"I want to see the city."

Hohenheim was a foot away and closing when Ed opened the door. Ed did so quickly, ready to exit, and took two steps outside before the explosion of the gate's world took him in a gut wrenching violation of every sense.

It was first the sight of all the blood, but it was also the incredible smell of so much of it. Indoors within the city, the world was an ash gray as if a preserved symbol of what had been but now was old and used. Defying science concepts like sound, smell, and light, did not travel using nature's law. They were tools of the gate, and while nature said the smell should have penetrated the house the same way it would the entire room, it simply did not. That was not what the gate wanted.

Outside the world was entirely red, with every available surface stained, dripping, and pooling with fresh blood.

Having entered the outdoor porch Ed was standing in two inches of it, and the shock value, which was overpowering, snapped Ed's hands upward as if he had to defend himself and there they broke into a flutter of frame rattling shaking.

Hohenheim reached Ed with him caught inside this unthinking stomach hardening movement. The moment his fingertips brushed Ed's coat the gate lost all power over him. Suddenly Edward's mind was flowing back towards his own, and he grabbed the back of Ed's collar the way he used to when the boy was six and would not stop talking and walking when he ordered, and ripped Ed back into the house.

Frantically, with his left arm, Hohenheim whirled Edward to face him and hugged the boy to his chest, while using his right arm to slam the front door closed. He was expecting Ed to scream, or perhaps begin a wild form of squawking panicked speech, but with the fright of it Ed had gone mute. Hohenheim felt Ed's arms lock around him, and Ed was pushing with all of his strength toward the stairs. Unconsciously Ed was trying to flee, and Hohenheim restrained him.

"It's all right!" he said loudly, petting Ed's head more harshly than intended. "Ed! It's all right!" He hugged as hard as he wanted, and crushed Ed to him. "It's all right son, relax," he whispered, beginning a soft continuous shushing sound. Ed's face was buried in his chest, and the boy's heels were pressing into the ground and kicking to push them toward the stairs with the blood lubricating the bottom and causing Ed to slip about like a new skater on ice. "It's all right Ed, it's all right."

"The blood!" Ed cried, managing his first words. "Everyone is dead!" Perhaps this was true, Hohenheim was not sure. "They're all dead! The blood is everywhere!"

"Yes," Hohenheim said softly. "The blood is everywhere Ed, but it's not inside with us." Ed was shaking hysterically, and Hohenheim could feel the whirlwind that was Ed's mind. The majority of it was rapidly convulsing in fear of the animal or power that could have so violently slaughtered so many people so quickly all of the blood was still wet. "The blood is wet forever Ed." Hohenheim didn't know how to address the list of thoughts streaming from Ed's mind.

"It must have killed them all," Ed whimpered.

Hohenheim lowered his face and did his best to pull Ed's from his chest. "Ed, use your head son. Here you are going to have to always use your head. Think about the temperature, the humidity, the volume of the blood. How long can it really stay wet? Be rational. Did we just miss the war that caused this?" Ed's expression was overrun with frightened sadness an entire population of people he'd never met had just been murdered. "And what could have done this? What size and shape? What strength?" Ed uprooted his face to breathe easier and it was very pale and Ed looked ready to vomit. "The blood is wet every time, but I've never met a single person here. Outside of the houses that is simply the state of the world." Hohenheim pet Ed's bangs from Ed's forehead and Ed cracked a sorrow ridden smile of pity. "I wanted to break this to you gently. I did not want the abrupt introduction that just passed." Carefully he helped Ed stand, and Ed looked down at the streaks of blood he'd smeared all about the parlor and dry heaved gently.

Ed had relaxed but Hohenheim could still hear the string of concerns looping and feeding off one another in Ed's mind. To counteract, he tried his best to remember Resembool during the summer, and although he did not believe Ed could see his thoughts, he had confidence Ed would sense something.

Ed gave himself a few deep cleansing breaths before nodding. "I am okay," Ed muttered, sounding more exhausted than he did embarrassed. "I am okay now." Neither of them were convinced.

"If you walk slowly, it will not splatter," Hohenheim said. Ed looked up with a deteriorating expression of hope giving way to dread. Hohenheim's statement caused one extremely powerful thought from Ed, and they both heard it, and both politely ignored it. _I don't want to go outside!_ "We'll stay on the sidewalk." Hohenheim gave Ed an encouraging smile before leaning forward so they were eye level.

Years ago he would bend down to Ed with both fists extended so Ed could guess which one held candy. Each time Ed was delighted he won upon first guess, and every time Hohenheim discretely slipped the other hand's candy back into his pocket.

Now, just as he had then, he leaned forward so they were eye level and said, "There is a place in the middle of town where there is no blood." He lowered his voice as if sharing a secret. "It is the only place." Ed immediately became curious and some of his color returned. "Can you get there?" he asked kindly.

"Yeah I…" Ed straightened his slumped posture the slightest bit and gave a weak shrug. "Yeah I can." Ed looked nervous with his commitment because he no longer felt he could rightfully judge his ability to do anything. After seeing the blood he had opened his mind to the infinite possibility of what this place manifested, and it was a wise thing to do. Hohenheim could feel it, and he respected it. Edward had made a serious decision in doing so, and it was not only scientifically accurate, but exactly what the gate hated: _Good judgment._

"Very well." Hohenheim clapped a hand to Ed's shoulder and gave him a smile. "Then stay with me."

They left the house in careful steps. The blood did not run in, but they shut the door behind them anyway. Outside they looked to be on a suburban street. The blood splattered houses had landscaping that now looked like clumps of wet hair-matted vegetation. Many of them had shutters with blood trickling through the slats of wood and dripping off trim above their windows and doors. On the corners blood drenched lanterns shot upward like red roots and dripped endlessly into moat sized puddles.

On the porch Ed grabbed Hohenheim's arm for reassurance. Stepping outside gave you the sensation of stepping into crosshairs. The gate knew where you were, and knew you were there. Ed felt his adrenaline spike, and his body responded by jumping his rate of breath. Quickly he sucked in thick mouthfuls of disgusting air, and looking green, he yanked his coat sleeve down over his right palm and cupped his nose and mouth trying to filter the smell of raw flesh.

"Do you need to vomit?" Hohenheim asked calmly. Ed turned a frazzled glance Hohenheim's way and shook his head wildly. "Okay, then walk carefully." Hohenheim led them off the small porch, down the moving red river which was the walkway, and to the main sidewalk. The street was flowing with blood and this close it was easy to see it moving. The sight of it was commanding. Ed's eyes were wide and almost bulging above his half smothered face. Together they watched a small doll, upside down with just its blood stained legs sticking up in an awkward V, float down the middle of the road.

"There's no people here?" Ed muffled, sounding again concerned there might be. _There might be survivors!_

"No people." Hohenheim laid a hand on Ed's chest to gain Ed's full attention and pointed into the distance. The houses were different heights as all houses were, and this caused blood caked roofs to be cut off with the chimneys of other homes. Like the house they were in, some were bent into odd angles, and many tall structures, like the lampposts, were twisted as if they'd been exposed to intense heat. Hohenheim pointed just above a chimney that was bent over like a melting candy cane. Blood was actively dripping from its lowest points as if it were raining. From inside the mouth of the chimney it was dribbling out as if the entire house were full. "Look into the distance," Hohenheim instructed. Ed was staring at the chimney with his breathing near hyperventilation. _Was the house full! Full of blood!_ "See in the distance Ed?" Hohenheim used his finger to pan far off at the city's edge where the houses were sloping upward as if someone had taken the flat land beneath the city and curled it upward to form a bowl. "The terrain keeps the blood active." The houses were growing up the walls in some places. As a result parts of them were sagging down. Windows had unbuckled, shutters were flapped outward, and a large English Tutor had its front door hanging from its hinges with what looked to be a dinning room set trying to escape from the inside.

Ed leveled his palm and bent his fingers in an upward slant with a questioning expression. _Is the land tilting upward? _

Hohenheim took Ed's hand and curled it into a cup. "Like a bowl," he said, pecking his finger about the edges of Ed's palm. "The city goes up about this far." Hohenheim sat his finger in the middle of Ed's palm between his Line of Heart and Line of Head. "This is where we are going." He traced his finger a tad to the left near Ed's Life Line. "And this is where we are." Ed gave a quick understanding nod and Hohenheim forced a smile. "The smell is by far the worst part," he sympathized.

The design of the town was that common throughout the decades, and it was this human presence that made the unseen, but omnipresent, monster appear so powerful. It was the violence and abnormality inserted into something normal that was so powerful. The roofing lacked any law of engineering, and the second stories were bulging, twisted, or bent tremendously and groaning. The outside of a small cute village was coated, if not, painted with blood that never dried, and never disappeared. Every stone and every brick it kept the blood dripping from every edge and raised point. Between the sidewalks it ran like arteries sapping the trickling, leaking, and streaming pools that swam from every structure, red carpet lawn, and sidewalk. The few inches of raised cement did little to stop the flooding. They stood in inches of blood which rippled and splattered. Hohenheim had kept to the sidewalk with every journey and never dared step foot in the road.

They began their walk slowly, keeping a conscious effort to stay clean. Ed followed Hohenheim staying very close with his nose and mouth covered and his wide eyes drinking in the anathema. It was disquieting to the worst level. The visual of the city was molesting, and it had taken many visits for Hohenheim to manage the grace and composure necessary to walk through it like a visitor. There was something intimidating about the hallow death that suggested what had happened was not truly over, and at any moment it could start up again.

"You're handling it much better than I did," Hohenheim said, trying to make some conversation as they met their first intersection and would have to venture into the road. "I was sick." He turned to Ed. Ed looked drained with the idea of crossing the street. "For a long time." Carefully Hohenheim stepped his first foot into the red vein like river. The blood was close to six inches in depth and Hohenheim was thankful it wasn't deeper. Having it inside their boots would be miserable. They both watched it soak into the bottom of his pants, and Ed muffled a tiny sound of illness with the idea he would have to imitate.

"…There's a part...without blood?" Ed muffled, stepping carefully into the road. Like Hohenheim Ed stepped in and paused, both expecting something to happen and seeking reassurance nothing additional would. There was no etiquette to stepping into a lake, no matter how shallow, and with this one made of moving blood, there was something to be said about allowing it to swim over your feet.

"Is it getting in?" Hohenheim asked, watching the blood soak up Ed's pant legs a few inches.

Ed shook his head and they began a slow pace of large steps as if using snow shoes. "This part without blood, it's in the middle of the town?" Ed asked. Hohenheim nodded.

They managed the intersection and stepped back onto the sidewalk. Hohenheim gave each foot a careful shake to rid it of the extra blood. Ed imitated flawlessly, and during the last shake to his right foot Hohenheim felt a sudden change in Edward's demeanor. It was so abrupt and specific it felt as if a lamp switched on in Edward's being. Quickly Hohenheim turned to the boy, half expecting Ed to be doing something unusual, but Ed was simply standing at his side. His appearance was so natural that for a moment Hohenheim thought he was imagining or misinterpreting a thought Ed was generating, before Ed glanced to him, and it was there. Inside Edward's eyes, the new light from the lamp.

"It's that way," Ed said, lifting his left hand and pointing accurately into the city. Hohenheim was silent. He did not want to confirm this. "Big," Ed whispered, breaking their gaze and looking off into the streets. "A big empty spot." This was correct. "I was there," Ed whispered.

"No, you've never been there Edward," Hohenheim said softly with a bit of unease. He did not like what the gate did to his son.

"I was," Ed repeated, staring out into the city. "On the ground, lying on the ground," Ed said quickly with certainty. "I…I don't remember why." Ed returned his gaze and there was something new and troubling inside it. "Why would I be lying on the ground?" Ed asked softly. "Crying." Ed sounded as worried as Hohenheim felt. "I was crying." Despite Ed's time in Germany, Ed was impressively tenacious, and there were few times he'd cried in Amestris. Although within all of them he had cried hard, Ed's resilient determination stood in conflict with his German location. _It was not like Ed to run away._ So Hohenheim's only conclusion was that it was less than probable Ed had a memory of lying so close to the gate and more than probable what had finally chased Ed into Europe might truly be terrible.

"How young were you?" Hohenheim asked. It was possible it happened when the limbs were taken.

Ed looked surprised. "This old," Ed said. "I was me." Ed lifted his hand and gestured to his own chest. "Like this."

Hohenheim tried to analyze what this meant, but he was guessing and he hesitated to offer Ed his estimates because he thought Ed would take them too literally. Discretely he wrestled his indecision that bringing Ed here was right and sound judgment, and immediately, as if listening, he felt the gate mumble a burp in protest.

Ed's head whirled in the direction he had just pointed in, and it was clear Ed felt this as well. "I know how to get there," Ed said confidently. Ed took a few steps forward looking off into the city before beginning a moderate speed.

"Edward, please, slow steps," Hohenheim cautioned. The gate was toying with them. It was delighted with Edward's self imposed reunion and eager to give him its gift. Hohenheim felt sickened knowing he was helping to aid with its desires, but the part of himself he knew to still be human thought this was best and couldn't see past not offering it to Ed.

The bottoms of Ed's pants were becoming flecked with droplets of sprayed blood, but Hohenheim didn't have the heart to stop him. Ed put a lackluster attempt into avoiding puddles of it and when they crossed their fifth intersection did what he could to leap over the swirling pool of it collecting along the corner.

Ed was on the path to discovery and Hohenheim followed Ed's brisk steps as he marched through the gore as if it were rain water. It was disturbing Ed could suddenly navigate the town and could accurately describe their destination, but more so than that, Hohenheim felt scientifically paralyzed with the emotional resurrection this was causing.

It was an old sense of loathing growing stronger within himself, and with it something more. It was even greater than his newly recovered parental urge to protect Ed, and felt more to be a sense of ferocious vengeful fire to kill anything that might threaten Ed. Decades ago on the dusty street of a western town he had seen a grown man throw himself at four well armed men after they'd shot his boy. As an unbiased observer Hohenheim had cataloged this as passion driven human foolishness. Any calculation guaranteed one unarmed man against four well armed men would fail, and yet the man did not hesitate. The blind emotion of the human organism, Hohenheim understood, to be overpowering, and what little he could remember of it, was too hazy to suggest if he too had been victim to the rash impulsiveness of anthropocentric matters. The concept seemed near absurd, and yet he knew, at once and with absolute certainty, that what he now felt inside was as much a transformation as it was an awakening. He was becoming that unarmed man, and against the army that was the gate he was not afraid. He would throw himself at it, with every murderous intention, if it dared to step out of line and threaten his unassuming son's well being.

* * *

**Please review**, this chapter took some effort.  
I hope everything I tried to portray came across, so anything you feel urge to comment on…I would be thrilled to hear it.

Chapter 14: _Pressure Oscillatio_n, will be up next Friday 4/12/13…then there are only 4 left.

I will be adding a poll as to what story to post next. So if you are enjoying my writing style, please take a look at my profile and share your opinion. Until next week, take care everyone.


	14. Pressure Oscillation

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Fourteen  
_Pressure Oscillation_

- mirage -

Ed reached a few corners in which he hesitated, but for the most part kept a forward pace before approaching an alley Hohenheim was far too familiar with. It was a sliver between buildings and Ed tried to see to the other side before impatiently turning sideways and squeezing himself in.

"We're almost there," Ed said, sounding excited. The space between the two wet buildings was a pinch for Hohenheim, but Ed's smaller size left him plenty of excess. He was almost running as they made it to the half way mark. "This is it!" Ed cried.

Beyond the alley was a clearing in the center of town which lay forever free of blood. Ed charged into it with the excitement of finding yet another continent when everyone was convinced the world was flat. He ran forward trying to look everywhere at once with his arms lifting as if to conduct a symphony before quickly covering his mouth as if to hold back a yell. "I knew this would be here!" Ed cried, dropping one hand to his side and pushing the other up his forehead and into his bangs. A crooked smile burst free on Ed's face and he laughed a minute later. "I knew it." Ed pointed to the massive space of rocky floor. "I know this!" Inside the smooth clearing of blood, lay a transmutation circle large enough to house a soccer game. It was the most complex and involved circle Hohenheim had ever seen, and Ed was running along the edge of it trying to read as quickly as he could.

"Ed, don't go too far!" Hohenheim called, examining himself briefly to verify he wasn't painted with blood from the journey between the buildings. Unlike the way he arrived at this part of the city: tears streaming from his eyes and vomit hanging from his lips, only to collapse to his knees in sorrow this was all there was, Ed was celebrating.

"Hohenheim!" Ed called, half the circle away. "Have you read this!" Ed was cupping his mouth to be easily heard. "Four main points!" Ed was pointing. "Here, here, here, and there!" Hohenheim had back tracked after finding the array in order to climb higher and read it. "This middle line to dissect the diagram is pulling the two sides together!" Ed was almost dancing where he stood. He didn't need to move back to read it, he chose to run around it. "This is incredible!" Ed was moving again and kept himself just outside the first line, but as close as he could get to it. "Eight outer points! Four inside, it magnifies the intensity of the array, it blows it out of proportion! It would be almost too strong to control! What-what would you need to cause such a reaction for!" Ed was making his way fully around. "The Philosopher's Stone!"

Hohenheim approached the circle and knelt down. With appreciation born only from respect for the complicated science to create such a design, he ran his fingers along the first line. It wasn't calk, it was carved into the floor and the indentation tickled the pads of his fingers.

Ed arrived at Hohenheim's side panting. "Dante said equivalent trade was a joke, but then we saw it suck up the lives of hundreds of soldiers in order to complete one. To think, combined with all the lives you took with her, and it still needed a finale like that to be whole." Ed dropped to Hohenheim's side. "Think what we could do if we activated this." Ed lowered his hand to the floor and felt the markings. Hohenheim watched Ed trace the lines with something near affection. Ed's fingers were smaller, clear of life's wrinkles and thinner like Trisha's fingers. "I almost can't," Ed said, laughing for a moment. "It's almost too much to fathom. There's too much flesh in the diagram, but too much science and construct to be human." Ed chuckled. "Can't be both." Ed lifted his gaze to Hohenheim's patient expression, and Ed looked as happy as Hohenheim had seen the boy since he'd arrived. Seeing the alchemy here in Germany animated a part of Ed that had been entirely silent. Hohenheim felt he could literally see a glow about Edward's skull as if Ed had been plugged in and lit up. "Are you reading it?" Ed asked, gesturing to the circle with excitement.

"Yes, I've read it," Hohenheim said softly. He was dreading the moment this pure happiness ended because he knew it was coming quickly. For the time being Ed looked younger than Hohenheim remembered and he felt he couldn't take his eyes off the boy. There was simply no way to communicate to Edward, how being privy to the single life, the life of his son, was more fascinating and heartbreaking for him than a thousand circles like this. "Ed, I am very glad you're safe," he said softly. "And that your strength is returning to you."

Ed was engrossed in his thoughts and gave an indifferent snort before poking his finger down on the array. "It's not human, and yet it can't be anything but, not with these patterns. Yet…" Ed lifted his hand and pointed outward into the field of the array to parts which confused him. "It doesn't have means to live, the outer ring, and the center two are hallow of anything life sustaining." Ed lowered his hand looking perplexed. "It would just give birth to something that would promptly die."

Hohenheim smiled, because it had taken him exactly eleven days to be certain of that fact.

"Why would you create a circle in which your life immediately…" Ed abruptly silenced when he came to notice a line he was tracing with his eyes stopped in the middle of the array. It disappeared with many others and continued later as if someone had taken an eraser and dragged it down the very center for exactly seventeen feet. "What the hell?" Ed asked, lowering toward the ground and squinting his vision. "Someone erased some!" Ed shot up in outrage, and looked around as if the culprit would be standing by and snickering. With the still of their surroundings Ed dropped a questioning gaze to Hohenheim and hooked a thumb toward the blankness in the array.

Hohenheim chuckled, and said warmly, "Edward, you're a genius."

"Do you know what this makes?" Ed asked, adapting a suspicious tone. Suddenly Ed was realizing that Hohenheim had not shown any excitement with the array and this meant there was something big here he didn't understand. "Did you make this?" Ed asked, sounding impressed all ready.

"Goodness no," Hohenheim said, laughing a bit. _Him, make this._ "I am afraid even this is over my head son." He pointed to the far right corner, the section of the array he had translated last. "There," he instructed. Ed craned his neck to see, and raised to his toes trying to make out the lines.

It was the beginning of the seventeen foot long, five foot wide, and four foot deep blemish in which the transmutation circle ceased to exist. From above it was visible as one long rectangle indentation dissecting the exact center of the circle down to the smallest fraction of a degree.

Ed examined the corner being shown to him with his eyes and sighed heavily. "Did part of it get washed away?" Ed glanced to the left corner to make sure he had missed nothing. "Is that why it doesn't work?"

Hohenheim gave his head a shake. "No. That portion of the circle was never made Ed. It was never needed." Ed's face contorted with confusion. Hohenheim stood and laid a hand on Ed's shoulder. "I wept along side this circle until I was so fatigued I could barely move." Ed looked chagrined with this confession. "Then I crawled through the blood up to one of the roof tops for a good view." He gestured to the surrounding homes and Ed glanced at the dripping shingles and bent chimneys. "And when I did, I realized what went there, and understood that the circle is only ever perfect, and only ever active, when it is present."

"What," Ed whispered, entranced with this suggestion. Transmutation circles did not have item placement markers. "How can a circle not be completed without an item? They're meant to birth out of deconstruction and reconstruction, they don't require them for completion." Hohenheim was certain he could see Ed glowing, and he knew any minute Ed would realize what he was staring straight at and missing. "What could be so great you'd put in the middle of the circle! What sort of…" Ed fell silent when the memory came back like a slap in the face. The circle. The white light. The entrance. THE GATE.

Ed jerked away from the circle with a short fearful gasp. "The…" Ed croaked. _The gate? The gate! THE GATE!_

"Yes Edward, the gate." Hohenheim felt Edward's shoulder stiffen, and Ed took a quick step back as if the circle were dangerous and that's what it felt like. Like the circle was a mouth and if you reached your hand far enough over the edge it would be bitten clean off.

"Should we…" Ed muttered, glancing nervously about them. _Should we get out of sight?_ Hohenheim could feel Ed's building desire to hide.

"I've come to think of this place not as any side, or destination, but more of a…regurgitation," Hohenheim said, and this was as clearly as he knew to explain it.

Ed's expression stiffened with alarm. "It expels so much?" Ed asked weakly. "So much the blood never dries?" Ed's voice was faint, as if the thought of the horrible gate suddenly slamming into the ground only to open and vomit raw flesh and blood onto the town was too much.

"Or perhaps it's more symbolic than that, and it never dries because the pain on either side never will," Hohenheim suggested. This was a more passive version, but both were potentially accurate and there was no way to test the validity of either. "We are just spectators here Ed. There's no way to test our theories. Alchemy does not work here, and that is why you have lost all of your abilities, and the automail Amestris created when you passed."

"But then why did I lose my memories!" Ed cried, breaking into a whine Hohenheim had not heard in years. Ed's face lost almost all composure and for just a brief moment looked like the little boy at the bottom of the stairs who could not for the life of him go to bed composed. "There's no reason I should have lost those."

"But you didn't." Losing something and having it stolen were two different things. "You remembered yourself lying on a floor, lying on this floor." Ed's expression leapt with avidity. "Therefore if you can recall some they were not taken from you, you simply can't remember them."

Ed looked relieved there was hope he might access the information he so desperately wanted, but confused he couldn't do so if they weren't stolen. "Were some taken?" Ed asked, the whiny tones of his younger years still hanging in his voice.

"There's no way for me to know that."

Ed closed his eyes and gave a deep exhale. "I was on an array. I was lying on a giant array. A floor, but it was wood, and very big. Not stone," Ed said, beginning to frown. "That means I haven't been here," Ed said sadly. "And it wasn't this floor."

Hohenheim was not surprised Ed had not been here, there was little possibility that could be true before despite Ed's certainty. However, Ed's concentration had given them an optimistic greediness, and he remained supportive. "You did not know the floor was wood a minute ago Ed."

Ed gasped. "That's true!" Ed gave Hohenheim's arm a fast approving smack. "But I don't feel as if I just remembered that. I just…honestly don't think I realized the contradiction of my thoughts from before."

Hohenheim gave Ed's shoulder a kind squeeze. "I brought you here in hopes this might help return what you've lost, and," Hohenheim paused and resigned himself to the rest of it, and his assumption Ed would respond badly. Ed looked worried with his soft and saddened tone already. "…and so that you may be as close to your world as I can get you."

Ed was silent, waiting patiently for elaboration before realizing Hohenheim wasn't building to an explanation, he had given it. The truth was simple. "But…" Ed muttered. Hohenheim could sense his own words repeating again and again in Ed's mind. Ed understood what he said, of that he was certain, but Ed wasn't swallowing it. _Ed was fighting the truth._ "…but…and then this is as close as I can get?" Ed asked. Hohenheim felt Ed clinging tight to logical denial, and Ed's voice was on the crack of painfully accepting it. "But…" Ed whined, glancing over to the array before the blood caked houses. "But this isn't anything at all." And this was the horrible truth of the matter. "This is…but," Ed whimpered.

Hohenheim was patient; he saw a level of sadness seeping into Ed's expression he recognized from only a few days ago. Ed was accepting his words as if he were swallowing poison and Hohenheim could see it killing the life that had only just awakened.

"This isn't close at all," Ed said dryly. "This is dangerous." Ed lifted a numbed expression outward to the array. "This isn't my home," Ed whispered. "This is standing at the edge of a bomb without a clock. Any second the gate could decide to slide back into place, so what good is this?" Ed looked to Hohenheim, and sensed the rejection of his statement. "It can't?" Ed asked softly.

"Ed." Hohenheim felt himself smile, and he could only imagine how it must look. Although he was smiling at a time that must seem incredibly out of place to Ed, he was smiling at the distinguished person his son had become. Ed had celebrated and now he was grieving, without ever fully touching the array. Without running into it open armed and begging the way he had. "You've displayed such self restraint," he said, full of pride for the respectable man Edward had grown to be. "When I was here, I ran deep into the center, and I tried to finish the transmutation." Ed looked to the empty slot with just a hint of desire to do the same. "I wanted to active the most magnificent circle I'd ever seen," he confessed, voicing the excitement he could still remember. "I thought, there is no risk! How can there be? The greatest thing I can lose is my life. I'd already lost everything important: my love, my home, my children." Ed stared at the gate's foundation and slowly closed his eyes with these painful words. "It had taken _everything_," he whispered. "And after living so long I recognized how special that was, and I would have done _anything _to get back to her." He remembered bringing his hands down in anger, and in chest ripping sadness, over and over into the stone array until they bled. "I tried, _oh how I tried._" He chuckled with the bitterness of it. "And now you're here, and look at you." He gestured to Ed's straight posture, and Ed opened his eyes and returned his gaze. "Just look at you." This was the same boy who was scared of grass the first time he'd seen it. The same little boy who taught baby Alphonse to color in the lines, insisted on carrying heavy shopping bags Trisha could manage, and who, until the age of five, would cry if chopped black olives appeared in his food because Ed insisted they were ants.

Hohenheim gestured at Ed's stature before to the array. "Here you are, separated from what you love, and you haven't touched it once." Hohenheim fixed his eyes on Ed's exhausted expression. "I am_ impressed_ by you son."

Ed's featured tightened, in a nakedly painful way as if Hohenheim's words were a knife to his gut.

"Your strength, and the strength I've seen you admit all your life, is something I can still say I hope to amount for myself one day." Ed's eyes rushed with the tears he was fighting. "You are more human than I have ever been."

"_What are you saying old man!_" Ed snapped, struggling to keep composure. Ed did not want to hear about his mother, did not want to hear about this absent father who loved him when hating was so much easier than missing.

"I am saying I brought you here because I wanted you to do what I did Edward. To run into this circle and fight to regain what you've lost, and to cry when you cannot make it work."

Ed was horrified and he took a step back from Hohenheim with angry disgust. "_What!"_

"You see," Hohenheim said softly, slipping his hands into his pockets. "When I did this, I was able, for just a small time, to speak with her again." Ed stroked an angry hand across his eyes and sputtered a chest full of air. "Just my voice and just hers."

"Mom?" Ed croaked, bottom lip wobbling. "You spoke to mom?"

"I can't be sure of the time. I am sure any time allotted would have seemed too little, but this appears to be the finale. It may be a cosmic joke too large for us to understand, as I am sure it's not of mercy the gate offers this to us Edward but," he gave a soft shrug, "you'll take it just the same."

"Stop," Ed whispered, actively fighting tears with his hands balled into fists at his sides. "Just…be quiet."

Hohenheim felt guilt creep up on him and took his hands from his pockets. "Ed," he said softly. "I wanted you to come this close." He reached for Ed, but Ed slapped his hand away and raised an open palm to him.

"Just stop," Ed ordered, voice quaking on the brink of emotional hysterics.

"If forever banished I wanted you to at least have a chance to say goodbye." This was why he had brought the boy. "I couldn't explain that to you before." Ed never would have understood it. "You needed to see this place to understand, I can't put into words what you feel and know just standing here." Ed's bottom lip was wiggling spastically and Ed brought the hand warding Hohenheim back to his eyes and held them for masculine privacy. "I know it's not what you wanted, and that it is horrible, _truly horrible_, but you need to know it is the only thing I can offer you Ed. This is the only thing you can take. There is no way to go home."

Ed leaned forward the slightest bit, as if preparing to sneeze, and cried out the softest sob Hohenheim had ever heard. It was the quick and gentle stroke of a violin's bow against its strings. In this place Hohenheim could feel Ed's pain drifting out from his body as if it were seeping from his pores. It was a sweet but very sharp sensation, and there was something painfully innocent about it.

Hohenheim traveled the few steps separating him from Ed and took Ed's shoulders in a tight reassuring grip. Ed was holding his eyes as he cried, and there was little of him to see with his bangs hanging into the back of his hand, and his teeth clenched above his quivering lip. "I know son," Hohenheim whispered, giving Ed's shoulders a squeeze.

"I…" Ed squeaked, breaking another gentle cry. "…I just want to go home."

Hohenheim turned Ed gently and pushed him toward the array. "Step inside," he encouraged. Ed stumbled forward and crossed the lines easily. "Go ahead, and walk into it." Hohenheim made sure to stay outside, and Ed traveled in a few feet and then stopped.

Ed lowered his hand from his eyes and sniffled heavily. "How's ah…" Ed wiped at his eyes and cleared his throat. "How's this work?" Ed peeked back, looking a bit embarrassed with his emotions, but also near the point of exhaustion that erased even the strength for shame.

Hohenheim had no directions for how the gate worked. It was careful enough not to provide practice where you could begin to hold a sense of yourself in its place. The gate enjoyed its power and commanded it, it was not interested in advisories, it was not the challenge of control, but ruling like a god which it loved.

Ed sensed Hohenheim's lack of counsel and looked down at the array's carvings beneath his feet. The few times he had spoken to the gate, it was always listening well before he knew it was there. Somehow that felt the most appropriate even now.

Hohenheim watched with heightened suspense as Ed stood in the array. Without their conversation a silence settled over the city and cavern below the Earth. There was only the distant dripping of blood into puddles and the steady pattern of it leaking onto flat surfaces.

Slowly Ed walked further inside, so he was fifteen feet from the outer circle before clearing his throat again. "Um…I'd like," Ed said softly. "…I'd like to talk to Alphonse please." Ed felt small with only his voice in the large circle, and waited patiently to see if anything would happen. Subconsciously knowing Alphonse might come Ed wiped at his eyes and rolled his shoulders quickly to get a grip on himself.

"Ed," Hohenheim called from the side. "Stop composing yourself." Ed looked over with an expression of deep strife. "You need to accept what is happening. What are you trying to hide?" Hohenheim knew the gate required a level of raw submission to respond, but Ed took this question literally and bristled with offense.

"Does it _bother_ you I have a problem standing here crying like some candy-ass pansy?" Ed snapped, wiping his nose on the back of his hand.

"Humble yourself," Hohenheim suggested.

"I don't really have a lot of practice," Ed grumbled sourly.

Hohenheim sighed. "You have always been a stubborn and prideful boy."

"Bite me old man." Ed turned his back to Hohenheim. "I don't need anyone to help me do this. If it's going to open for me, it'll open the way I ask it to," Ed said, staring down at the intricate lines and curves. "And I say, open NOW!" Ed lifted his foot and stomped it down on a brilliant swirl. "You fucker!" Ed filled his lungs and leaned forward screaming. "You piece of shit!" Ed kicked and stomped on the array in livid anger. "Stop keeping me here! LET ME BACK!" Ed broke into a quick run as if he could attack the transmutation and stopped abruptly to drag his feet along its design. "I hate you!" Ed cried, kicking aggressively in one spot as if trying to uproot part of the stone. "I HATE YOU!"

Hohenheim was shell-shocked with Ed's action, and stared with his jaw dropped. Ed had become an animal, and was verbally and physically attacking the array before tripping mid tantrum. Ed fell flat to the stone floor, and it was then, with Ed temporarily silent and still after all his commotion, that Hohenheim heard a whisper ghost past him like a birr of air.

"Fullmetal?" the voice was incredibly faint, and Hohenheim felt his breath hitch. _It was happening! This was it!_ Ed was sitting in the array mumbling to himself, and hadn't yet noticed, but the voice held a presence in this world. Hohenheim could feel it coming closer. "Fullmetal?" The volume was increasing and Hohenheim held his breath, waiting for Ed to hear it. "…Fullmetal?" Ed's head suddenly snapped up with wide untrusting eyes. "Where are you?" the voice asked. It was male, a soft baritone, but a respectable confident voice.

Ed scrambled to his feet in a panic. "_Where are you!_" Ed screamed, voice in hysterics. Ed spun in a wild circle looking frantically about the array.

"Stop yelling," the voice scolded, sounding half asleep and disturbed. "Is that you talking to me?" the voice was confused, and Hohenheim remembered Trisha's immediate bewilderment and how badly she had called out to him. She had begged him to tell her where he was. In the beginning they had barely been able to manage a conversation with her crying so heavily, and him unable to muster anything of substance in his responses.

Ed was quicker here as well. "Yes it's me!" Ed said, sounding desperate and looking sick with relief they could both hear each other, before a look of pain crossed Ed's face and took most of his color. Ed was realizing quickly what would happen if he tried to explain where he was, or if the owner of this voice thought Ed was close and wanted to unite. "Only…" Ed whispered, swallowing roughly before squeezing his eyes closed. Ed brought his hands to either side of his head and covered his ears while leaning forward as if in pain. "Only," Ed croaked. "…you're dreaming."

Hohenheim's eyes filled with tears.

"Dreaming?" the voice asked, sounding humored. "So I am not crazy then." The voice was smiling. "I thought you were calling out to me. I thought I was going to have to get up." The humor in the voice was fading into sadness. "I thought I was awake."

Ed was standing weakly in the same place he had leapt to his feet. Now with the voice speaking Hohenheim watched Ed's knees give out on him and Ed began sinking toward the stone in a slow kneel. "For a moment," Ed said softly. "We can talk." The voice was silent. "Will you…tell me what's been going on?"

"I've resigned," the voice said. "My attack on the Fuhrer, there's no way I can continue, but you and I both knew that."

Ed did not seem surprised. "But you're okay?" Ed asked hopefully.

"I survived," the voice said dryly. "And what about you?" the voice asked, returning to the smile they had heard before. "Still giving an arm and a leg?"

"Suck my balls," Ed retorted dryly. The voice began a soft laugh. "It's about time you leave the higher ranks anyway. Getting paid what you were for doing so little, you were scamming the entire country," Ed scolded in mock.

"Maybe so," the voice said kindly. "But I somehow remember you always along side of me." Ed smiled a soft and genuine smile with these words. "I miss you now," the voice said seriously. "I don't think I'll want to wake from this dream." Ed's smile crumbled into a shaking dread. "Will I get to see you in it?" the voice asked playfully. "Will you be naked?"

"No." Ed shook his head in tender sadness. "Sorry to disappoint."

"What if I promise you anything you want?"

"Have you forgotten how rich I am?" Ed teased, sitting up a bit straighter and grinning down to the array. "I can buy myself any present I desire."

"What if I promise to hold you and never let go?" Ed's smile dropped from his face, and a pale ill expression took hold. "What if I promise to lick and kiss every inch of you, until you fall asleep?" The voice chuckled a good-natured mischievous laugh. "I can become more explicit if you like?" the voice enticed. "If you let me see you, I'll tell you what I'll do to each part."

Ed grabbed at his face and rubbed his palm down to his chin before holding his mouth in anguish. With poor coordination Ed slowly reached his left hand toward the array in a struggle to organize himself enough to continue. "Fine," the voice said, when Ed was silent. "You were never really persuaded that way anyhow." The voice sighed heavily and abandoned the topic gracefully. "Now that I have a chance to talk to you however, I've been meaning to ask what you've done to your brother." The voice had a kind and teasing tone, but Ed responded to reference to Alphonse in a panic.

"Alphonse!" Ed cried, dropping both hands to the array in desperation. "Is he okay! Have you seen him!" Ed gripped the rocky surface in distress. "Please! Is he okay! You're taking care of him, aren't you! You son of a bitch, please do this for me!"

Ed's tones and phrases were desperate and the voice sent a jerking chill of alarm into the air and became more intense. "Fullmetal?" it asked quickly. "What's wrong with you? He's fine, of course I've seen him," the voice scolded. "Are you all right? Are you hurt?" the voice adapted grave concern. "What's happened? What's going on?" the voice asked, seeming to come to understand more than it should. Ed was holding his face with his hands, one locking his mouth shut and the other covering his eyes but the voice knew just the same. "You're crying," it said softly sounding sad. "Please tell me you're not hurt." The voice did not sound as if it thought this would be the case, and became grave with frightened certainty Ed's news would be dreadful. "What is it?"

"I think…" Ed managed, choking back a sob. "_I think I've been sent away and I won't ever be able to come back!_" Ed slumped forward where he sat as if bowing to the array. "I don't think I'll ever get to see you again." Ed began crying convulsively. "Or Alphonse, I won't get to see Alphonse again." Ed sobbed the word 'again' in a long droning sound of pain. _Agaaaaaain._ "This is finally it Roy." Ed dropped to his elbows weeping to the stones. "My punishment." Ed brushed his bangs from his face sniffling excessively. "Being away from him I—I have no one. I—I am all alone and—and—and being away from—and—being away from you." Ed's words were tear ridden chokes of painful breath. "You! You! You always understood me!"

"I thought you said I never understood you," the voice teased kindly. Ed choked a laugh into his tears. "Alphonse is fine Edward," the voice reassured. "He's happy. He's living in your home town. There isn't much you need to know about him."

Ed stopped crying with confusion and sniffled heavily. "What do you mean by that?" Ed asked, wiping tears from his face. "Why would you say that?" A bit of panic bled into Ed's voice. "There is everything! _Everything _I need to know about him!"

The voice hummed a soft sound of acknowledgement. "It is better you remember him as you did, and know that he's happy and healthy now. I met him in the flesh you know." Ed's expression gave way with a bit of relief hearing this news. "He was pleased to meet me."

"Will you tell him something for me?" Ed asked softly. "Tell him...his brother said to keep moving forward," Ed whispered. "To live." Ed began silent tears with the understanding he would never be able to speak to Alphonse again.

The voice exhumed a sense of pleased acknowledgement towards Ed's request, and Hohenheim knew it was smiling.

"I'll tell him you said you love him," the voice said happily. "I'll tell him I had a dream with you in it, and that you sounded healthy and happy to be alive." Ed was crying steadily where he sat. "I'll give him your message and tell him I never admired anyone more than I did his brother." Ed crashed back into the rocks and pressed his forehead to the ground. "Are you sure I can't see you?"

Ed sobbed. "_Oh, _I would if I could!"

"Even with tears all over your face?" The voice was struggling for optimism. "You were always so beautiful when you cried," the voice teased, but Hohenheim noticed it was fainter and knew the time was coming to an end. "Fullmetal?" the voice asked, sounding a bit worried, as if it too felt the change. Ed was mutely crying into the ground. "Edward?" the voice called sweetly. "I have something to tell you too." Ed lifted his head a bit. "My message." Ed sniffled heavily and wiped his nose down his arm. "Stand up," the voice ordered kindly. "Get to your feet."

Ed whined a long squeak of a noise. "Okay."

"Stand up!" the voice snapped.

"I am standing!" Ed yelled back. "You can't see me, I am telling you what I am doing!"

"Get to your feet now!" the voice demanded, and Ed sulked up angrily.

"You're such a dick," Ed whined, staggering to his feet and managing the slumped posture of a broken man.

"Straighter," the voice said kindly. Ed was still and even from so far away Hohenheim watched a single tear drip off Ed's chin to the rocks below. "Now!" the voice snapped, becoming annoyed. Ed immediately corrected his posture, and jerked erect. "Now," the voice said, tone satisfied and ready. "Walk forward." Ed lifted his foot to obey before going stiff with understanding. "And don't stop," the voice added. "This is goodbye for me Fullmetal." Ed's eyes widened painfully. "Temporarily," the voice corrected lightheartedly.

"What!" Ed cried, spinning back to the spot he had been sitting. "Roy, wait a second," Ed begged, dropping to his knees.

"I am starting to feel really tired Ed," the voice said, fading gently. "I think if you don't go I am going to, and that's not what I want."

"What!" Ed screamed. "Stay awake you bastard!" Ed slammed his hand down on the rocks. "I come to talk to you after I go missing and you can't even stay awake! You good for nothing pig!"

"Ed." the voice was very faint.

"_ROY!_" Ed screamed in terror. "Roy, don't leave me here!_ DON'T LEAVE ME!_" Ed was hysterical suddenly, and Hohenheim saw himself in his son. "_PLEASE!_" Ed sobbed. "_Please!_" Ed grabbed at the rocks as if he could hang on to the voice. "Please don't go! Please!

"Ed," the voice scolded in a warm teasing fashion. "You're embarrassing us." The smile was back, but Ed shook his head wildly. "I'll tell your brother everything you want, and he'll wait for you." The voice was fading fast and Ed was hyperventilating with the disconnection. "I'll be waiting here."

"No please," Ed crocked, beginning to shake.

"I love you," the voice said, smiling brightly. "Stay…" and the last word was lost, too soft to be heard, but the intentions could be felt. It was everything well you would wish someone, but the shut off was like inhaling water when you needed air.

Ed felt the severed line as if he'd personally been the one to drop it, and Hohenheim saw Ed's mouth open for a scream of such a pitch and volume he'd never before heard one like it.

"No!" Ed was hysterical. "Please don't leave me here! I haven't done anything horrible enough for this please!" Ed collapsed into the ground on his knees and pressed his face into the floor. "Roy! Roy! Please! Just let me talk to him a little more!" Ed sobbed. "Roy, you asshole."

Hohenheim neared the outer ring of the gate when only silence responded to Ed's cries. He didn't want to interfere if Ed could force the connection once more. Although he found it unlikely, he would hold out hope for his son.

"Please," Ed was crying uncontrollably, dragging all words out in long sobs. _Pleeeeeease dooooon't leeeeeeeve meeeee heeeeere._ "Oh please, what am I going to do—what am I going to do." Ed was moaning when Hohenheim felt the return of a presence and felt it was the gate coming closer. It was ready, ready to sweep in for its prize, but Hohenheim was determined not to let it. As soon as he felt it advancing he began a quick walk to the crumpled lump that was his son.

"Edward?" Hohenheim dropped to Ed's side and Ed looked up at him with tears and snot running down his face.

"Do you know how to—did you get—do you know-can you make this work again?" Ed cried, tipping his face down to hide it shamefully." I—I—I…"

Hohenheim grabbed Ed's upper arms and pulled Ed to his feet. "Come on Ed," he said gently. "Up on your feet, we need to get off the circle." This was the trick behind the treat. The gate would not tell you how to find it, but it would allow you to reach it if you arrived. It would not let you cross it in order to return, but it would taunt you with the taste, and then it would laugh.

It would laugh long and hard, and oh how you would feel it radiating up from the array and from every angle.

"Please," Ed cried, fumbling on weak legs that didn't want to hold him. "Can you get it to work again? Just for…."

Hohenheim took tight hold of Ed's arm and pulled it over his neck. "We're moving off the circle," he informed. "I am not going to let it mock you." Just the thought made him furious, and he kept a fast pace toward the edge with the sensation of the gate coming faster. It did not want him to win. It was not expecting him to interfere, or for anyone to interfere, and it wanted the price for its efforts.

Ed was too upset to coordinate himself and Hohenheim dragged Ed off the circle with him walking and crying and collapsed in the clean void before the blood. "I know," he whispered, situating Ed at his side so Ed could lean on him for support. "I know it's painful," Hohenheim sympathized.

Hohenheim felt the gate rear upward into the array, like a shark rising up from the deep, but it was unable to leave the ocean of its circle. The gate was angry with him. Like a scorned child it was lurking with a vicious spiteful rage. It wasn't ready to disrupt anything with its anger and was placing its stock in patient confidence it could trick Ed again. All it needed was for Ed to touch the array and Hohenheim could sense its belligerent faith it would be able to achieve this.

Hohenheim wrapped his arm possessively about Ed's shoulders and held Ed tightly. Ed was oblivious to everything for the time being and was consumed in his grief.

"I'll never see him again," Ed choked, shaking heavily. "I'll never ever see him ever again."

Hohenheim dug into his pocket and felt for the small flask he carried. He was not a heavy or even light drinker, but he had come to find a flask often came in handy. He pulled it free and began unscrewing the cap with Ed rambling.

"He's my brother and I'll never see him again." Ed grabbed at Hohenheim's arm and held on tightly for comfort. "I'll never see any of them again!"

Hohenheim lowered the flask into Ed's line of sight. "Drink this now Edward, it'll be good for you." Ed was crying, and looked at the flask with little interest. "Ed, it will make you feel better." Hohenheim moved the flask to Ed's lips but Ed was entirely unresponsive. "Edward." Hohenheim gave his arm a gentle nudge, but Ed turned his face into it and Hohenheim went still. He had never, since Edward was old enough to have a true sense of himself, had the boy hold him while crying. As soon as Edward was old enough to become angry with him over his travels Edward wanted little to do with him, and that included even less to do with him when upset.

Hohenheim had a clear memory of returning home after a three week journey to find Trisha in a kitchen chair cleaning glass out of Ed's bare foot with him bawling in her lap. When Trisha saw Hohenheim she enlisted his help and he was fetching things for her while she explained someone had carelessly thrown a glass bottle onto the lawn. Ed's heel and toes had been sliced badly, and when Trisha had all the glass out and left Ed sitting while she washed the blood from her hands Ed wanted nothing to do with Hohenheim. To Ed, he was just the man who had appeared in the kitchen. Hohenheim had managed, in just a few child years of Edward's life, to have himself denounced.

Later he had looked at Ed's injury to make sure the boy was okay. He was careful, and inspected the slice which split the back of Ed's heel and cut diagonally across three of his small toes. Trisha was furious and while cleaning up told him what she thought of careless people who threw glass bottles where children played. Hohenheim remembered saying, _"It won't hurt for long Edward, be a brave boy," _butEd wanted little of him. Ed brushed Hohenheim's hands away and would not make eye contact. Once Trisha returned, even at age six, Ed lifted his arms for his mother and she scooped him up and held him.

It was very apparent to Hohenheim he brought Ed no comfort, and had not done so since the day Ed had decided he was not going to tolerate his father taking absurd holidays whenever he felt the whim. Putting aside these last few weeks in Germany, where Ed was of such weakened health and physical ability he had no other choice than to accept Hohenheim's help, this moment, in which Ed was consumed by the grief for every person he knew and cared for, was the first Hohenheim could remember since before Edward could spell the word hypothesis, in which Ed wanted him for comfort.

Carefully Hohenheim set his hand in Ed's hair and held his son's head to his arm. "It will pass Ed," he said gently. "This too shall pass."

Ed cried until Hohenheim was able to fit the flask to his lips, and then Ed swallowed German whiskey for the first time in his life until there was none left to drink. Hohenheim knew it would be too much and that Ed would be drunk and possibly harder to work with, but it was all he had, so he gave it.

Twenty minutes later Ed was still sad, but the alcohol mellowed him, and Ed lay on Hohenheim's side in a catatonic trance with his own thoughts. The gate was weary of this and kept silent to see where its opportunity might be, but Hohenheim felt secured he was winning. On and off Ed continued to cry, and Hohenheim gave Ed what he could. Loving company, at a time he'd wished to have someone with him.

Their stay under ground lasted longer than he'd anticipated. Edward's sadness exhausted the boy and after crying steadily for over an hour Ed was dead weight with the whiskey. In the silence of the city Ed sobered up to the sound of the blood trickling down the lattice trim of the house on their far right, and the sound of it dribbling from the basement window.

When they finally moved Ed would not look at the array, and they left walking together. As Hohenheim explained, no matter how many times you visited, or how you pleaded, the circle worked once. He confessed he had returned days, weeks, and even years later begging to see his family, begging to see the world left behind, but this single connection, to an unselected part, for an undisclosed time was the final blow. The gate found this a card it could play after abandoning them in an unknown world nameless and loveless as they were. When he returned he was allowed to speak to his wife, and Ed was allowed to speak to a man he knew intimately and who he cried over. Although Hohenheim was disappointed it wasn't his youngest son, who he too would have liked to see, he felt grateful Ed was allowed to speak to someone Ed truly cared for in that last moment.

Ed was equally distressed he wasn't allowed to speak to Alphonse and rambled on and on about what he hoped Alphonse was doing, and things they had done before they separated. Hohenheim led them up one of the Northern buildings and into a small hole that was only visible after two stories up. Ed was far less coordinated with the whiskey and tripped and stumbled in the climb. Still not perfectly sober Ed complained about the blood added to his clothing and how ridiculous it was men wore nightgowns in Europe.

The journey out was different from the journey in. It consisted of a small opening just barely the width of Hohenheim's shoulders. Looking much like it was not meant for humans, and threatening collapse or entrapment, Ed did not hesitate. With pioneering confidence he wiggled his way into the rock without complaint. Once inside they crawled at an upward slant toward the surface. There Hohenheim knew they would arrive at an exit, and like every time before it would be covered with growth and life, so from the surface it was impossible to find. He had searched many times over and in respect had come to think of the exit as a way to leave a place and part of the world which never should have existed. So there was but one way in, and one way out. He thought of the gate, and the city, as a stain on Europe. A catacomb of despair trapped a mile below the surface. A land coated in blood.

The climb upward was difficult because it was in darkness, but the uneven surface of the tunnel and the gradual slant made it easy to grab and crawl. Hohenheim kept count in his head, always sliding his palm forward along the rough surface, until during one pass his fingertips ran into a wall. That was how the tunnel came to stop; you suddenly hit the surface of the Earth and had to dig your way out.

"What are you doing!" Ed called, breaking into heavy coughs when Hohenheim grabbed a hunk of dirt and tossed it back. He had been careful to avoid Ed so he ignored the outburst and continued. He was eager to find light and fresh air. "What is—why are you throwing dirt at me!" Ed yelled, tipping his face down to protect it. This made the top of his head and hair the prime target for the loose soil tossing back, and Ed began cursing. Their exit was sealed and nature's door of heavy moss had fed roots into the soil making it wet and heterogeneous.

"I am sorry Edward." Hohenheim found himself laughing despite their circumstance. He was laughing and coughing at the same time. "Our exit is a bit overgrown!" He grabbed fistfuls of the earth so the soil was soggy and heavy like snowballs before tossing it behind him. In many ways it was like digging through a moist chocolate cake before the smallest specks of light became visible.

"_A bit!_" Ed scoffed, holding an arm over his face. "Are you aiming at me on purpose!"

"Certainly not."

"Then do a better job god dammit!" Ed was slapping dirt out of his hair while laying in a tunnel of it. "Son of a bitch! Let's switch places! I'll dig and throw dirt at you!"

Hohenheim dug them out and pulled himself up into the forest like a rising plant. With shaking arms and weak legs he wedged himself to the rocks below and pushed. The forest guaranteed that every exit was like climbing free of a potted plant, and Hohenheim crafted the hole they were to escape from by pushing his body through a dirt wall until it gave way. He popped out hands and head first, and then used his arms to pull until he was wiggling out his hips and legs.

He left behind a hole that seemed too small for a human body and Ed's fist punched through it and slapped at the roots and leaves already trying to cover. "Wonderful way out you know," Ed said bitterly, squirming free blowing grains of dirt from his face. "Now I have dirt all in my hair and clothes."

Hohenheim was on his feet and slapping at his own garments, but Ed's comments made him laugh. His body felt slightly achy and his ribs had a tingle from the exercise after their recent healing. It seemed each trip was determined to remind him again and again he wasn't meant to be burrowing about below the earth.

"Yes," Ed said sarcastically, wedging free and toppling out. "Ha. Ha. Hardy har." Ed sat in the dirt shaking his head like a dog as Hohenheim's laughter subsided. "This is gross," Ed complained, looking down at himself. They couldn't have looked worse if they had shoveled a hole of dark soil and blood and rolled in it. "We have fresh clothes in the car, right?" Ed plucked the top of his shirt outward and looked in with disgust. "I assume in your all-knowing all-planning wisdom you brought us clothes?"

"What nice flattery," Hohenheim teased kindly. Ed glanced up with a dark look. "We do have supplies in the car Ed, but we might want to rest a moment. Do you want a breather before we hike to the car?"

Ed snorted and wobbled up before plopping down on a rotting log. "I want to take a bath," Ed said dryly.

Hohenheim laughed again. "In due time." Ed lifted an unimpressed glance Hohenheim's way and plucked a stick from his hair. "I'll admit, I am not looking forward to your reintroduction to the car." Ed had dirt streaked along his face, grains in his hair, and the bottoms of his pants were splattered with blood and mud. The small loss of balance from the whiskey had left Ed filthy, and Hohenheim had not anticipated them emerging in such deplorable states. "I said I'd return it in like condition."

"Please," Ed muttered, rolling his hand in a small circle as if fanning himself. "Some more jokes."

Hohenheim laughed and beckoned they leave. "Come on Ed." He started into the forest and Ed stood up with a groaning exhale.

"Without my walking stick?" Ed asked sarcastically. "How reckless of me."

"Our humor is a relief," Hohenheim said, speaking his thoughts aloud while staring upward into the forest. It was impossible to see the sky as they walked. The trees created a fog canopy, with much of them covered in moss. Vines the width of their limbs hung downward and about the spreading branches. The part of the forest near the gate was lush and kept a menacing overcast as if fertilized and influenced by the blood.

Hohenheim kept his pace steady. There was no reason to rush and the emotional exhaustion of their adventure carried heavy like a bag of stones. "I'll admit, as much as I am ashamed of it on many levels…" Hohenheim glanced back to Ed, and Ed's eyes were locked onto him with interest, "I am very used to emerging from that hole brushing away dirt and tears."

Ed was trudging along keeping his balance with both arms slightly lifted on either side of him. "Is it easier?" Ed asked softly, dropping his gaze to the forest floor. With the ground thick with growth and padded with damp organic compost they made no footprints. "…with someone?"

Hohenheim stopped walking and considered the question. _Was it easier with someone?_ The sensation of Ed holding onto his arm for comfort was still very real in his mind, and when Edward tramped by him he thought he could smell Ed's natural scent.

"Yes," Hohenheim whispered, coming to follow the boy. "Especially someone who I used to beg that circle to see." Hohenheim swallowed the sense of vulnerability that came with confessing this aloud. He was subject to Edward's criticism, but Ed was stung with his words. For a moment Ed stiffened and stopped walking, before returning to a slow thoughtful shuffle.

A comfortable silence came between them and Hohenheim could feel his mind wondering peacefully. As he crunched over old twigs and browning leaves he thought about how showing Ed something as devastating as a world dripping with blood might haunt and tug relentlessly at Ed's soul the way he had experienced. To be blunt he had brought Edward directly to the gate so it could get a good whiff of him in this world. This was a dangerous thing. The gate would wait for Ed always, and after today it would hunt him to satisfy its own bloodlust for Edward's taste. For that he felt guilty and irresponsibly selfish for having done this, but inside the human irrational side of him that longed for Trisha well after she was gone, he felt justified. How could he deny his son the conversation which just took place when he knew it was possible to achieve? It was all he could give, and so he did. That last secret moment, and those special words, meant something to Ed, possibly more than he'd ever know. In this way they were now the same. He could not explain to Ed what it was like to hear her speak when he believed he never would again.

Hohenheim remembered the sound of the man's voice, and the intimate things he had said. "Ed?" He chose a casual tone of conversation and asked, "He was your lover?"

A long silence followed his question.

Ed trudged diligently onward and there was nothing but the serenity of the forest vegetation and insect life before Ed spoke. "Yes." Ed kept his pace steady. "He was my lover."

Ed stepped over a fat rotting log and Hohenheim watched the movement of Ed's prosthetics, but the puncture wound did not seem to be affecting it. "Did you know him long?" Hohenheim asked, choosing his words carefully. He couldn't deny he itched with curiosity, but simultaneously he didn't want to pry, and trying to do both was terribly difficult. Despite the difference in sexuality he was proud of his son for having loved. Knowing Edward had grown to an age where he could find a counterpart to care for and share such an intimate bond made him happy. Understanding Ed had lost that person and now managed to stand tall after such a loss made his heart ache.

"You could say that," Ed said, briefly glancing back looking unprepared, but not so uncomfortable he could not manage the topic. "It was hidden," Ed explained. "A secret romance if…you could be so corny."

"A secret romance," Hohenheim repeated, growing a soft smile. He remembered Trisha when she was much younger leaning out her bedroom window when he'd throw stones into the panes. "Such beautiful words and an immaculate and priceless gift." In the afternoons he'd walk alone up the long dirt road to her house, his hand in his pocket happily bouncing the small pebbles he would cast. "I've come to learn love is by far one thing you should hope to be blessed with in a single life." Ed's profile was just the slightest bit visible and a gentle smile drew Edward's lips upward as he watched his feet. "He sounded like a nice man," he said sincerely. Ed looked up with surprise. "Respectable."

Ed dropped his gaze smiling. "If I knew you better I'd say you would have liked him," Ed said, sounding spirits higher from the boy down below the Earth. "And he would have liked you." Hohenheim felt a swell of pride Ed would cast a compliment from such a personally guarded subject. "I know it's…not traditional and…we kept to ourselves," Ed said, speaking his thoughts aloud. "I didn't feel it was wrong so…I don't care what people say." Hohenheim heard a twinge of anger appear in Edward's voice. "He was never wrong," Ed said softly. "To me."

Hohenheim heard a voice off in the distance and he jerked his head toward the sound. Immediately he felt intruded upon and he cursed his luck. Having to interrupt Ed while he was communicating so openly was a robbery.

Far off towards the road there was movement and Hohenheim returned a worried gaze to Ed.

"I never would have told you," Ed confessed giving a small shrug. "I didn't know how to say it."

"And there is nothing to explain," Hohenheim said, quickly closing the distance between them. "You can love whoever you wish Edward." Ed looked stunned with these words, but Hohenheim did not have time to continue. On sight of someone walking near the road he grabbed Ed's arm and pulled him behind a large tree.

Ed startled with the sudden relocation. "What is it?" Ed whispered, leaning around the trunk to see. Hohenheim did the same and together they caught sight of a single man walking alongside the entrance of the forest trying to look in. "Do you know him?"

Hohenheim shook his head with confusion. "Edward, this area is extremely secluded." So unpopulated the notion this stranger was a simple passer-by was idiotic. It meant the man was searching for them. _The question was why_.

"Oh shit," Ed whispered, sneaking a hand around the trunk to point. "There's three of them." Further to the left, on the road which ran parallel to their hiding spot, two men were hanging around their car. The visitors had parked directly behind their own, and the two men were facing away from the forest making it hard to see their faces. "How did they find us?" Ed asked, sinking down the tree to kneel in the vegetation. He rested his knees in a clump of moss and his frame thanked him for it. The moist air was doing wonders inside his chest, but the overall exertion was still taxing. "I can't believe this," Ed complained, and this comment caught Hohenheim's attention.

"Do you know them Edward?" he asked, moments before catching sight of the familiar blond man from Kempton. "Oh dear." German Havoc was leaning into the hood of the car smoking profusely as if under heavy stress.

"They must have followed us somehow," Ed said miserably.

Again Hohenheim's mind went to the nagging question of why the man would take such efforts, and he cast a scolding look at Ed. "Did you take something from that man Edward?" Ed stole a quick guilty glance Hohenheim's way. "Something which would make him follow us?"

Ed's expression soured. Years ago Ed had raced to the dinner table and reached forward with one hand to seize a steaming biscuit before Trisha snapped a quick "_And did we wash our hands?" _With an outstretched palm Ed's expression had slumped in exactly the same way. "I," Ed grumbled, shrugging uncomfortably. "I took his pocket watch. It was nice and after what he did I felt it was an equal trade." Hohenheim closed his eyes and exhaled a breath of disapproval. This was scolding enough and Ed choked a quick defensive breath. "I don't have any money of my own! It emasculates me to have to rely on you financially Hohenheim," Ed whispered harshly. "And I don't know how much you have. I don't want to keep eating it up!" Ed shuffled uncomfortably where he knelt as if he could toss the feeling of dissatisfaction off him. "Don't forget, he was trying to rob us!"

Hohenheim lifted a palm and gave Ed's outburst a nod. "This is an awful lot of cavalry for a simple pocket watch." He turned his gaze back toward the car.

"Yeah well," Ed said, with insult that implied the watch was rightfully his. "It's a really nice watch." Ed reached into his pocket and pulled it out.

Hohenheim was flabbergasted. "You have his watch on you?"

"Well where else am I supposed to keep it!" Ed threw it at Hohenheim. "You gave our house to charity, and I don't have a suitcase of my own." Hohenheim snatched the watch out of the air, as if catching a fly. "The roman numerals are gold, and you can tell both the hands, and subsidiary second hand are silver. Even though the face is open, the gold garter in the back, which is fully engraved by the way, and large Fusee lever are really nice. It's very classy." Ed hiked his eyebrows with appreciation, and pointed at Hohenheim's closed fist. "Decorative silver, full plate gilt, polished steel regulator, that's my watch now old man." Hohenheim opened his palm and looked at the small item Ed was so enamored with. To him it looked like a silver pocket watch of unmistakably fine craftsmanship, but still, it was only a watch. It shone brilliantly, had an exaggerated sturdy hoop at the top, and a beautifully engraved body. The gold detail was powerful because it was slight, used sparingly for decoration, and the combination of all four colors: the silver, the faint gold, the white of the face, and the blackened detail about the watch's hands, made it aesthetically arresting.

"I've never seen you so taken with something," Hohenheim said, turning the watch over in his hand. The gold garter in the back looked like a gold washer on an elegant silver tray. "Do you like pocket watches Edward?"

Ed glanced away and rubbed the back of his head uneasily. "Yeah, I am kinda attached to them but…that's a little hard to explain."

"Well, we could have bought one." Hohenheim handed the watch back, and Ed slipped it into his coat pocket. "Even one as nice as that."

Ed's expression soured. "That does defeat the point of robbing that piece of shit," Ed muttered.

Hohenheim turned back to the road with a heavy sigh.

All three of the men were young boys, or what this world called lads, and they seemed none too motivated or organized. It was easy to see the tall blonde man who they had first met was orchestrating the event and although it was possible the watch held some type of sentimental value, this still seemed rather excessive."Are you sure you didn't take anything else Ed?" Ed shook his head. "Positive Edward?"

"Nothing," Ed said, before giving a pompous snort. "Nothing more than my dignity." Ed sat back into the bush he was half inside. "What do we do?"

"I don't have any weapons if that's what you're implying son." Hohenheim kept his gaze analyzing the scene at the car. "I've managed to live in both worlds without self driven violence. It's a great waste of effort and human time."

"Don't start talking like you're above us," Ed snapped, leaning forward and giving Hohenheim's arm a firm poke. "You're a human too, and one of us." Ed sat back and sighed. "But it is a waste," Ed agreed, thoughtfully dropping his gaze. "I can't do anything with these prosthetics. I am not sure how coordinated of a fighter I'll be."

Hohenheim found this statement out of place. "I don't have any intention of confronting them under the notion of hand to hand combat."

Baffled, Ed looked up. "Then how are we supposed to get the car!"

"Is this how you solved your dilemmas in Amestris Edward?" Hohenheim asked, with a tone of slight displeasure. Ed was defiantly silent when the answer was obvious. "There are other methods," he said returning his eyes to the road. One of the gentlemen accompanying the blonde man now had a large branch he'd found and was swinging it with a bit of excited aggression. "Of course," Hohenheim said, with a bit of disappointment, "…sometimes violence is necessary." He looked to Ed who sat with a skeptical expression anything _but _violence was necessary here. "How strong is that arm of yours?"

Ed flexed it thoughtfully. "It's suitable." Ed did not sound fully confident. "But I am used to fighting with the strength of two metal limbs. I think I'll overestimate myself unintentionally." Ed's statement was serious, but afterwards he chuckled as if this were a joke. "Overestimate myself," Ed repeated with a laugh. "Overestimate the Fullmetal Alchemist."

Hohenheim gave this uncharacteristic silliness a critical glance. "Underestimate yourself then." He pulled back from the tree. He grabbed the front of Ed's lapels and pulled Ed up. Ed groaned and grabbed at Hohenheim's hand uncomfortably but Hohenheim wasn't about to let Ed trip when they could be spotted, and that small bout of playfulness made him worry some of the whiskey was still in Ed's system.

For Ed's safety he was more than willing to sacrifice some of Ed's dignity. Carefully he led them further out into the forest struggling to use the vegetation to conceal and not reveal them. The same plants who offered their wide leaves as shelter threatened to bounce about like signal flags as they passed. Beneath them the same twigs which were harmless now seemed to crack loudly and Hohenheim was careful to pull Ed away from larger ones he might snap.

Ed did not agree with this type of travel and Hohenheim could feel the passive resistance from Ed even as he obeyed the hold. "Hey!" Ed whispered, tugging to be let go after they'd quickly cleared fifteen feet. "Hey! We're moving away from the car." Ed pointed back to their car, but that was an accurate statement. "Hohenheim!" Ed complained. "We're moving _from _the car instead of _toward _the car."

Hohenheim stopped and knelt in the brush pulling Ed down with him. "I am moving you a safe distance away," he explained.

Ed's face blanked over with shock before jerking free with outrage. "So I can hide like some pussy!" Ed hissed, slapping aside the large leaf leaning into his face. "I've done enough of that today, thank you." Ed straightened his jacket with a quick efficient yank. "And you honestly thought I'd let you put me out here in the woods while you what? _Fought?_ Ed asked snottily, gesturing around them with an open palm. "One old man against all of them?" Hohenheim was silent. He had come up against a lot of things in his life, and three young lads did not intimidate him. Hohenheim looked over toward the car while Ed was talking and it seemed they had not been as stealthy as he thought they were. The same man who had been patrolling the forest edge was looking over to them with a hand held over his eyes trying to see. How and why he hadn't spotted them yet was baffling and Hohenheim took action quickly.

Ed was still talking when Hohenheim pushed him over. With one hand on the side of Ed's talking face he pushed Ed right into the bushes and stood up. "I've been spotted!" he announced loudly. The man patrolling the forest was pointing when the other two boys jumped up. Hohenheim took off running. There were shouts to get him and when he looked back Ed was scurrying out of the bush with a wide eyed expression of shock.

Hohenheim planned to run in a wide half circle so he would end up back at the car. Then through a creative inspiration, which had not yet come to him, he planned to take it. While he was serving as a distraction he considered Ed might also make it to the car and with their enemies gone could start it if Ed had any experience with Amestris cars. Germany's cars had proven to handle the same, and while jumping over a rotting down tree Hohenheim mused on whether or not Ed was old enough to drive. Was it possible Ed had never been behind the driver's seat and could make it back to the car and not know how to start it or shift the gears?

A few of the boys were gaining and Hohenheim picked up his speed. He was limber on his feet and it was working to his advantage. The forest was slapping vines and leaves into his path as he tore through them. His pursuers were quick flashes of color and loud shouts and he knew in the dense forest he would appear as fleeting bouts of brown like a sprinting deer.

Suddenly ten feet ahead the tall blonde man stepped out from behind a tree. "Stop right there!" It was not the order, but the pistol in the man's hand which made Hohenheim slow.

He broke down into a decelerating jog catching his breath. _Guns. _He was not expecting that. "Oh my," Hohenheim said, stopping a few feet ahead of the barrel. "It looks as if I've underestimated you."

* * *

Curtain Falls on Chapter 14.** Please,** please, **leave a review.** This chapter was a challenge. Any comment, no matter how small, is appreciated.

Chapter 15: _I Battle Germany_, will be up next Friday 4/19/13. I hope to see you there.

_[Note: My profile now has story descriptions / a poll for voting on what story is posted next. Please cast a vote!]_


	15. I Battle Germany

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Fifteen  
_I Battle Germany_

- mirage -

Hohenheim was still catching his breath when the friends of German Havoc raced up and either side and took a tight grip on his arms.

German Havoc wore a dull sack coat and arrived with a small cloud of breath puffing before his chin in the cooling air. They had been underground for most of the afternoon and the evening was becoming crisp. The sun would fade soon and Hohenheim had wanted to be journeying back now so they could turn in early and have something hot for dinner.

"What the hell was that all about!" German Havoc snapped, looking angrily at the two boys holding tight to Hohenheim's arms. Either were in their young twenties, and both looked as innocently eager with life as Christopher did.

"He's fast Ehren." The boy on the right said, catching his breath.

Hohenheim considered the blonde youth holding the gun. Amestris had named him Havoc, and he was someone Edward had know, but Germany had named him Ehren, and apparently given the man a different disposition as well. Hohenheim felt certain this German Havoc was someone Ed had not feared upon sight, but now was weary of.

"He's much faster than he looks," the boy added.

"Yeah well, we don't need this one," Ehren said, lifting his 9mm Parabellum Luger pistol to take better aim. "Once I shoot him, drag him far back, and the bugs will eat him."

Hohenheim looked at the black gun barrel ascending toward him, but all he could think about was the barbarically detached words of this young boy. _Drag him far back, and the bugs will eat him._ Was it possible in something as laughably short as twenty years, ten of which were spent learning the fundamentals of life, you could miss the magnificence of all that was around you and grasp self egoism so naively? "Hold him steady," Ehren said, cocking the gun with the nervous concentration of one who had not cocked many.

Hohenheim figured he could wiggle free, attack one or both of the boys on his side, and avoid the bullet, or he could wait. Protest was the easiest choice, followed only by the evil second in which he deliberately let them shoot just to see what they thought about a man who didn't bleed.

Ehren cocked the gun with a rising level of adrenaline pumped excitement when the boy on Hohenheim's left was suddenly taken out with a rock. It was a large broad faced stone and it cracked into the boy's scalp above his ear batting his head to the side and directly into Hohenheim's.

Hohenheim stiffened with the blow to his head half expecting there to be a bullet now inside, but instead Ehren gave a shriek of outrage when two more stones, one colliding into the Luger barrel, and the second flat into the third attacker's face flew with impressive speed and accuracy.

The third attacker, a young boy with scruffy brown hair, cried a sound of howling pain when the rock met the bridge of his nose with the force of a base ball bat. Hohenheim felt both of his arms come free with either boy nursing their wounds. As it seemed Ed had considerable long range accuracy, and Hohenheim choked a fast laugh of delighted surprise. _Edward was full of them. _

Hohenheim's laugh was brief, and seemed to announce the two boys crumbling on either side of him. By the time Ed appeared in front of him, that laughter was over, and Hohenheim felt a storm of true alarm when Ed became the wall between the gun barrel and his body. "Ed!" he cried out in outrage, but Ed wasn't looking at him. Ed had jumped in front of his body as a shield and threw himself at Ehren. "Stupid boy!" Hohenheim cried.

Ed looped an arm about Ehren's in an attempt to secure the pistol, and Hohenheim ran to intervene. _He could take bullets, Edward could not. _Hohenheim made it three steps before nearly tripping flat when one of the downed boys grabbed his leg. "Let go," Hohenheim snapped, giving his leg a shake. The boy with the scruffy brown hair was hugging his ankle with blood pouring down his face. "Ehren I got him!" the boy called.

Hohenheim cursed and looked back to Ed who was having a hard time trying to win the Luger. Ehren was trying to raise it even with his arm locked in Ed's and fired once into the forest floor. The sound ripped through the trees like a bomb and Ed began swearing.

"Drop the god damn gun you piece of shit!" Ed said furiously. "I'll rip your arm out of your god damn socket and beat the shit out of you with it!"

Their second attacker, a young boy with a hideous amount of freckles, had his ear bleeding down the side of his head. He clamored to his feet looking as if someone had fired a cannon into his skull, and picked up the stick he had been twirling earlier. "Hold him Sebastian and I'll get him!" the boy cried, running toward Hohenheim with the stick drawn back. Hohenheim ducked the wide swing. To his right Ed and Ehren were arguing in a fierce struggle for the pistol.

"Ed, just get out of here!" Hohenheim ordered, dodging the second swing.

"Can't you get him!" Sebastian cried, hanging tight to Hohenheim's ankle while berating the boy with the stick. "For shits Adam, he's just an old man!"

Hohenheim grabbed the stick when it was swung at him and yanked it towards him. The startled freckled expression of the boy named Adam came with it when Adam hung on and he slapped the boy's face to the side. "I suspect your parents don't know you're out here," he said angrily, jerking the stick from Adam's grasp. "Continue like this son, and I promise," he said darkly, readying a sturdy grip on the stick. "Your life will drain away before your eyes." He knocked the boy upside the head as gently as he could and Adam went down like a bag of rocks. Sebastian released Hohenheim's ankle and began scrambling up.

Hohenheim looked to Ed, feeling the uncommon wild panic of a fight you could lose. He hadn't felt this in decades, but with Ed alongside him, it was true. He couldn't focus, he couldn't defend himself when his primary concern was defending Ed, and Edward, unlike him, was vulnerable to actually losing. Hohenheim abandoned Sebastian, who was just managing his footing, and ran straight to Ed.

Ehren had not dropped the gun, but was now flat on his back trying to turn the nozzle into Ed's face. Ed had managed an impressive straddle on Ehren, and was struggling to keep the gun from aiming at him while strangling Ehren with his false right hand.

At first it appeared they were just shoving at each other and their fight had begun a rolling struggle on the ground. Then Hohenheim caught sight of the Luger bending awkwardly to and from an aim that would fire directly into Ed's left eye and his blood ran cold. "Christ Edward!" Hohenheim cried, rushing between them. He grabbed Ehren's arm and began pressing Ed back with his elbow. "Let him up!"

"Fuck no!" Ed cried.

Sebastian leapt on Hohenheim's back and Hohenheim toppled forward. Immediately Ehren punched Ed in the mouth splitting Ed's lip, and Ed retaliated with a spray of bloody spit directly into Ehren's face. Hohenheim tossed himself back and sandwiched Sebastian into the ground and the boy cried out in pain.

"Just stop fighting old geezer!" Sebastian wheezed. "We don't want this kind of trouble!"

Hohenheim readied himself to deal a blow he'd rather not give to such youth when a terrible bronchitis like coughing began. It was so extreme; choking such a wet diseased noise, that Hohenheim didn't even recognize it as human. He paused with bewilderment. The sound was that of a weak and aged animal, hacking, and he glanced around with confusion before realizing the sound was coming from Ed. Ed was sitting on Ehren's torso and gagging on his own breath.

"Ed," Hohenheim whispered, loosing all concentration with shock. Ehren had discovered Ed's weakness and threw a second wicked punch dead center into Ed's chest. Ed slumped over and fell into a weak disoriented heap.

Frantically Hohenheim threw an elbow back into Sebastian's face and ran to Ed. "Edward!" he called, seeing nothing other than Ed's coughing body before Ehren made it to his feet and lifted the pistol.

"Stop right there," Ehren ordered, cocking it quickly. Hohenheim stopped in a state of dazed obedience. If it were not for the sound of the gun's hammer pulling back and rotating the cylinder into place, he would have never heard the order, but he had lived through enough wars and seen enough destruction that this one small and very distinct sound meant something all on its own.

Ehren's arm was shaking badly and it was rattling the pistol as if the boy were waving it. "Holy shit," Ehren managed, voice horse from Ed's hold. Ehren glanced nervously down to Ed who was wheezing a tight desperate sound. "Okay, I've had enough," Ehren said, struggling to regain control. "Start walking." Ehren jerked the Luger toward the road and Hohenheim took a single step in that direction. "That's right," Ehren confirmed, before looking down at Ed. "And you, get up!" Ehren barked angrily. "Get up you little thief. On your feet before my boot meets your face."

Their second attacker, who Hohenheim had taken out with the stick, wobbled to his feet looking overrun with disbelief and pain. "My head," Adam groaned, utterly distraught. "My ear's ringing something grand."

Ehren gestured to Ed with the gun. "Get him up!" he ordered Adam.

Ed was groggily trying to obey, but without the ability to breathe easy Ed was moving delicately and at the speed of the incapable.

"I thought you said this was going to be a quick in and out!" Adam argued, wiping at the blood coming fresh from his ear. "What the hell happened!"

"I don't want to hear it!" Ehren said, gesturing angrily with the gun. Hohenheim watched it wobble with its precarious angle aiming straight for Ed's back. Ehren, being so distracted, wasn't aware he was aiming, and Hohenheim fought to keep himself still. With the right grip he could wrap his hand over Ehren's and break every bone in that smaller hand. "Just get him up!"

Adam stomped to Ed's side and ripped him up. Ed came doubled over and coughing. Hohenheim raised his hands in a passive surrendering gesture once Ed was secured. Hohenheim knew the boys were confused by him, but there was still a strong chance they'd underestimate him.

With a look of disgust, and weary glance of suspicion toward Hohenheim, Ehren turned for the road and lead them back. Adam pulled Ed along and Ed was staggering forward through the vegetation bent over and wheezing.

As they approached the small incline toward the road Ed lifted his head and looked at Ehren's tall marching form. "Havoc," Ed whispered voice raspy and exhausted. "Do you…know who I am?" Ehren ignored this, and kept the pistol passively at his side as a sign of power. His pride was damaged in the fight. "We...are friends," Ed managed, clearing his sinuses and spitting into the dirt. "You know me."

At Hohenheim's right Sebastian was holding his nose and wiping at the blood on his face when this question caught his attention. "You know this kid?" Sebastian asked, sounding skeptical. "I thought you said he was a thief?"

"He is a thief," Ehren said angrily. He marched up the embankment alongside the road and turned cold eyes to Ed. "Drag him up here and search his pockets. Find my watch." Ehren lifted the pistol and aimed it at Hohenheim with Sebastian and Adam holding Ed up on his feet searching him. They had made it to the car and the boys stood Ed in front of the grille. "And you stay there," Ehren ordered, looking nervous. "I am not underestimating you old geezer." Hohenheim found this obnoxious.

"He's got blood all over him," Adam said, sounding uneasy with Ed's stained clothing. Adam looked at Ed's coat the way he would that of a gravedigger's jacket before glancing to Hohenheim and sweeping him with his eyes. Hohenheim knew he was in a similar state and wasn't sure what the young boys would make of it. "What do you think they were doing out there?" Adam asked, nervously. "Burying someone?"

"Who cares what," Ehren snapped, closing the topic. "Just find my watch."

"Havoc," Ed said, panting unevenly as his coat was stripped off. "You have to remember me." Ehren threw Ed a look of hate and bared his teeth with frustration. "I've known you for years."

"Shut up!" Ehren snapped, storming to Ed and pushing into his face. "Shut your lying thieving mouth you little peck." Ehren poked the gun barrel underneath Ed's chin and tipped Ed's face upward. "Look at you, you're filthy." Ehren smiled condescendingly and grunted. "Won't try to persuade me now, will you?" he asked, rudely tapping the gun barrel to Ed's cheek "It would be like fucking a corpse." Ed looked a bit startled with this statement and the reality of it. After climbing up from the ground Ed was streaked with bits of dirt. With all the commotion and exertion his energy had been sucked away leaving him pale. It was not a diseased look, but a general look of incapacitating illness, with the sweat from the scuffle giving Ed a clammy shine. "I hardly expect you to move me so inclined." Ehren taunted.

Ed closed his eyes with Havoc's cruel words and snorted a dark condescending laugh. In Amestris Havoc could talk big if he wanted to. _I took down all ten guys, with nine shots._ But the reality of the situation was always hiding right beneath the limelight, and in Amestris this was the kind comedic disposition of Jean Havoc. However, now in Germany, this appeared to be the opposite, but Edward didn't think that was entirely true. If this Ehren was really part Jean Havoc, than he had to believe the parts of Havoc which were the strongest, should exist here somewhere.

"I do know you," Ed said firmly, and with a tone of certainty that visibly moved Ehren to rage. "You smoke thirteen cigarettes a day." Ed opened his eyes and locked them with Ehren's. "You take your coffee black, you're naturally afraid of snakes, and when you're nervous you grind your teeth." Ehren's look of startled surprise was almost better described as fright, and Adam and Sebastian noticed. For a moment Ehren's jaw dropped the slightest bit and it were as if he were seeing Ed for the first time.

Pausing with his hand inside Ed's coat pocket Adam stopped searching and lifted his gaze to Ehren with a growing expression of deep apprehension.

"I _do_ know you," Ed insisted, before lowering his voice into a poised whisper. "And you know me."

"I've…" Ehren sputtered, swallowing heavily. "I've never seen you before in my life. You—you're a con." Ehren glanced uneasily toward Sebastian and Adam. They looked equally as nervous with Ed's accurate statements. "You threw the old man in front of my truck so you could rob me. You threw your body at me to pay for the doctor _I _paid for and then wouldn't make due! And now I find out you're some type of weird little spy."

Ed scoffed with the ridiculousness of Havoc's reasoning. "Are you serious?" Ed snapped, with disgust. "Like I would go to all that trouble for a peon infantry soldier." Ed moved to take an aggressive step forward but Adam and Sebastian held him tight. "I know what I know because I've known you for years," Ed said, spitting his words with intensified annunciation. "And you've know me for years Havoc!" Ed jerked again at his hold, unable to take the severe frustration of it all. "_Years!"_

Ehren clocked Ed in the side of the head with the base of the pistol's grip. "_Stop calling me that ridiculous name!_" Ehren screamed, grabbing Ed by the chin and jerking his face up. "Now you'll make good on your promise. I came for all the things you stole," Ehren said, before crushing their mouths together.

Ed flailed with immediate panic and threw his hands to Ehren's chest trying to push free.

Sebastian found Ehren's watch in Ed's pocket and pulled it out looking ready to ditch his loyalty to Ehren and run. "Ehren, we got the watch," Sebastian said, sounding as uncomfortable as he looked.

Ehren detached from Ed's face and looked at the watch Sebastian held with Ed panting for air and spitting to the ground. "Good," Ehren said, sounding pleased. "Then take a walk." Adam and Sebastian exchanged worried looks, and Ehren became worse when they hesitated. "I don't want you to stay and watch your horny little pervs!"

Ed was catching his breath and glanced quickly toward Adam and Sebastian who were, for a moment, in a transition that testified to their youth and didn't know what to do. For a moment things went silent, and Hohenheim glanced between the boys. His son was stuck on a tight rope with the three of them and at any moment the first decision seemed as if it would topple the rest into motion.

Both Adam and Sebastian looked torn with their own conscious and Ehren's peer pressure, and Ed was staring at them with new purpose. There was something of a short plea for humanity in Ed's expression Hohenheim had never seen, and Ed was directing it very specifically at two boys who were by all means strangers. _Don't go. Don't leave. _

The level of uncertainty was intense and it threw insult to Ehren's ego and he exhaled a quick coughing noise and jerked the hand which held the gun toward the ground in an angry gesture. "Well!" Ehren snapped, startling Adam and Sebastian who seemed to be dreading the moment in which they would have to decide. Ehren gestured up the road by tossing his arm in that direction. "_Walk up the road!_" Ehren waved adamantly. "Around the bend!"

Fifty feet up the road began turning and it would offer the privacy Ehren seemed to want.

"Ehren, are you sure this is okay?" Adam asked, looking worried.

"I am just getting what's owed to me," Ehren said angrily. "I already told you!"

Ed licked his lips nervously, and Hohenheim could see Ed's flesh hand beginning to fidget. It seemed at first a desperate motion but then it matured into something calculating, and Hohenheim came to realize Ed was thinking rapidly, and not just of what to do, but how to do it.

"Better leave," Ed said, surprising everyone and earning all pairs of eyes. Ed forced a smile that almost looked genuine. "He doesn't want you to witness his ass getting kicked." Ehren balled his hands into fists with rage. "Go on and get out of here." Ed jutted his chin toward the road. "Seems like a good idea to me," Ed taunted, prodding at the boys' uncertainty. Adam and Sebastian exchanges glances and Hohenheim could see Ed's words causing a new confusion that was so thick they didn't seem able to leave. Ed wasn't done, Ehren was the real problem. He was the conductor orchestrating this madness and he could easily find tempo again. "If you want them to stay Havoc, it's okay by me," Ed said, tone utterly convincing. "Unless," Ed said, feigning an expression of surprise. "You didn't tell them you like to bottom, did you?" Ed asked, puckering his lips dramatically in order to give a quick and brief kiss the same way one might wink.

Ehren charged Ed, but Ed was ready and tripped Ehren before giving him a swift kick in the ribs. Ehren's cohorts startled to life with the sudden attack, but Hohenheim intercepted before they could even move. He knocked one aside and grabbed the other in a choke hold, but their success was short lived. Ehren swept Ed's feet out from under him and Ed fell to a seated position and landed brutally on his rear. Directly afterward Ehren gave Ed's chest a revenging swift kick and the fight ran out of Ed like water.

Hohenheim felt the win entirely in his hands until Ed's ball was stolen before he had it long enough to score.

"That is it!" Ehren screamed, scrambling up and holding his painful ribs. Ehren sounded panic-stricken and raised the pistol and aimed it at Hohenheim in a desperate effort to regain control. Hohenheim released Adam and returned to an obedient hands-up. "This isn't working out like this," Ehren said, panting widely. "We're going to have to tie the old man up." Hohenheim had been choking Adam and the boy was coughing excessively and grabbing his throat. "Back up to that tree old man," Ehren ordered, gesturing with the gun to a strong pine growing along side the road. Ehren was shaking with a mixture of rage and anxiety he couldn't manage a hold on the situation.

Hohenheim lowered his gaze to Ed, but Ed had not moved from the spot in which he'd fallen. The injury to his chest left him rocking in a slight fetal position gripping his shirt and gurgling exhales.

With a total of three boys, taking them out was proving more difficult than Hohenheim had anticipated and he backed up to the tree with a calm emotionless glare on Ehren. Intervention would be easier one on one and he had more than enough experience breaking free from rope.

Ehren watched as Adam and Sebastian rushed to the car and then returned to Hohenheim's side with rope and began tying him around the tree. "Make sure it's tight," Ehren said, sounding nervous even as Adam wrapped the rope three times about Hohenheim's torso so he imitated a cartoon damsel tied to a railroad track. Hohenheim had first seen this in an 1867 short story entitled "Captain Tom's Fright." He remembered, even then, finding the concept silly, allowing the childishness of today's act to fit like a glove.

Once the rope was in place Adam stepped back and waited for Sebastian to finish tying with an expression that said he wished he was anywhere but where he was. Hohenheim could feel Sebastian tying each rope in place, rather than sloppy tying only once, and the boy's knowledge of knots and foresight was as unexpected as it was agitating.

"Okay," Ehren said, beckoning for Adam to return to the road with a loose hold on the gun. Hohenheim saw the grip relax, and Ehren's finger pulled from the trigger making it obvious. _Ehren did not fear Edward. _In this fight Ehren didn't even consider Ed an opponent he needed to watch carefully. Hohenheim looked over to where Ed lay pushing himself up slowly with his automail, and gripping the front of his shirt. Ehren's disregard seemed validated and Hohenheim felt guilt and a longing to comfort Ed arise and cause a hate for these boys.

"Done," Sebastian said, stepping back from the tree with a pleasant tone that said things were moving in the right direction.

Ehren slipped the pistol into his coat pocket and wiped a hand down his face to compose himself. "It's a lot of Marks, you know?" he said, almost teasing. Ehren pointed to Ed and then jerked the finger to the hood of their car. "Get him over the hood." Adam and Sebastian went to Ed and hauled him up by his arms. Ed came sputtering a quick breath of surprise and uncurled Hohenheim could see the blood that was down Ed's chin and he jerked in his hold. _He was trying to be civil, but these humans were starting to try his patients._

Ed had barely any strength caught in the midst of what resembled an asthma attack. His breaths were shallow meager squeaks of air, and he was tossed over the hood of the car like a rag doll. "Good," Ehren said, advancing with an eager lift in his steps. "Now take a walk, and make it last a few minutes."

Adam and Sebastian slunk away from the car as if it were something they didn't want to be caught going along with. Out of synch they gave quick compliant nods and nearly ran. Hohenheim could see them looking anxiously up and down the road in dread they'd be spotted, but he knew they wouldn't. This place was deserted.

Ed managed to lift his top half from the hood and was clearing his throat carefully as if he were trying to breath with a mouth half full of water.

Ehren loosened his collar as he approached. "And we find ourselves together again," he said, clasping his hands and rubbing them quickly as if he were about to dine over a great feast. "And we find ourselves, again, with you trying to cheat me and rob me out of what you owe me."

Ed opened his eyes and stared at the hood of the car listening to the footsteps close in. Frantically he tried to think of an option that was left to him, but it was becoming harder and harder to keep mental focus with his chest on fire. Ehren's blow had caused a hot explosion that seemed to have thrown open the door on whatever had been inside him since he'd come to Germany. That was followed by a sense of swelling, as if his lungs doubled in size, and then an expansion that felt as if his lungs were inflamed. It felt now as if he were breathing inside a furnace and nothing but hot thick air was coming and going. If he inhaled too deeply or too quickly, he felt as if he were drowning, and blood bubbled awkwardly inside with the movement of air.

Hohenheim grabbed the first rope wrapped around him when Ed lifted his head drooling down to the hood of the car, and Ehren advanced greedily rolling his hands together.

Ehren arrived at the car, and from directly behind Edward, he slammed his palms down to the hood on either side of the boy. Ed startled and did his best to stabilize his slumped posture. His legs were weak and felt as if they'd buckle, and his arms were heavy just to hold.

"I am a generous man," Ehren said, leaning down like a cat to a mouse. "So I will give you one last chance, and you know I don't have to give it to you." Ehren pet Ed's bangs gently from his forehead. It was an act of affection and Ed lifted a disgusted gaze and ignored the panicked breathing he couldn't hide. "You offered to pay for the doctor and I let you. Rightly so you pay for him," Ehren whispered. "So go ahead and say you will, and we can move to the car, to the seat." Ehren began a slow pet through Ed's hair. "It can be different."

Ed licked his lips and took a breath to speak. "…don't touch me," Ed whispered, closing his eyes. "I am to…sick to fight you off." This was obvious. "But I am being very clear." Ed opened his eyes and leveled his gaze with Ehren's. "Don't touch me."

Ehren knew he had the upper hand and ignored the sincerity of Ed's voice. "So you refuse to pay me?" Ehren raised his tone in a mocking gesture. "This is the last time I'll ask you."

Ed licked his lips a second and third time and lifted his face weakly in a gesture to speak. Ehren smiled the grin of a man who believed he had just won the war and he lowered his ear to Ed's mouth. From Hohenheim's angle that was all that happened before Ehren began screaming.

Hohenheim had once focused the energy inside himself, the energy that came with and from the gate, into his hand while gripping a piece of rope. It had smoldered until it was weak enough to tear. This had taken approximately three hours and decades ago when Amestris was establishing its peace with Shing, and many people were caught along the border, that had been the only option there was. Today, he knew when the boys' tied him to the tree inside his pocket was Ehren's own letter opener, and the dull blade but fine craftsmanship would cut him free.

Tied firmly in place, with a boy only a few years older than his son walking steadily closer to Ed while unbuttoning his collar, Hohenheim slid his hand into his pocket and retrieved it. With Ehren and Ed in conversation he slipped it up against the first rope and sawed until it broke free, and with Ehren leaning down to hear Ed speak he slipped it under the second.

As soon as Ehren's ear was close enough Ed lifted his mouth and bit as much of it as he could get. He had no intention of letting go, and when Ehren screamed and tried to jerk away, he clamped his jaw as tight as he could and spit out the blood as fast as it came. If this despicable person with Havoc's face was determined to attack him, then he would go down fighting anyway he could.

Ehren grabbed at Ed's head unable to separate it from his ear without causing more pain. "Ah! Let go!" Ehren screamed, throwing a jab which was weakened in such close quarters and without sufficient room to draw back his arm. He threw his fist into Ed's shoulder, stomach, and chest. Ed groaned with the blow to his stomach and to Ehren it sounded like a growl into his ear. "Fucking get off!" Ehren began fishing for gun in his pocket and was frantically trying to rip it free with the barrel caught in the cotton.

Hohenheim was sawing at the second rope.

"You fucking little maggot! I'll kill you!" Ehren ripped the pistol free and stuck the barrel to Ed's temple. "Let go! Let go!" Ed growled deliberately and Ehren cocked the weapon. "I'll fucking shoot you I swear!" Ed had his teeth deep inside Ehren's pinna ear flap and he did what he could to grind his jaw making Ehren howl.

Ehren turned the pistol upward and fired before pressing the hot barrel back to Ed's temple, and Ed let go.

Ehren staggered back holding his ear with his mouth twisted open in a silent wail. The ear's pinna bled easily, and it was leaking into Ehren's hand like hot water. Ehren held his shaking hand outward to see the blood before lifting a gaze of shock to Ed.

Since his release, Ed was panting through an open mouth of blood and Ehren's look of fright made Ed smile. His red smeared lips curled back and revealed blood soaked teeth that looked like bits of bone in meat. "Come give me a kiss," Ed rasped, poking his tongue from the corner of his mouth and licking sloppily at the blood smeared about his right cheek from Ehren's head. It was a crude lapping gesture Ed was exaggerating into something disgusting. Ehren took a quick step back and for a moment looked as if getting anywhere near whatever Ed was would be too fearsome and disagreeable to stand. Then, in the same moment Ehren had this thought, Ed saw it and felt a glimmer of triumphant hope. That glimmer slammed Ehren full throttle.

"You vicious little shit," Ehren sneered storming to Ed. With one hand he grabbed Ed's hair and slammed Ed face down into the hood. "Think I have all day?" Ehren sneered, thrusting himself flush to Ed's body and reaching around to Ed's pants. Ed struggled at once but the attempt was comical. "Think you're the only one who can make someone bleed?" Ehren asked, lowering his voice to a cruel merciless tone.

These words frightened Ed and he slammed his hands down and tried to push himself up but Ehren felt like a mountain. The boy's hand was unfastening his pants and Ed tried pulling his weight to either side, and jerking his hips in an attempt to throw Ehren's hold off kilter, but he was wedged in place. "Get off of me!" Ed cried, feeling the foolish humiliation and fear of a first grader pushed into the mud at the mercy of a much older and stronger school yard bully.

Ehren gave a laugh, a quick and elated giggle. "I'll tear you up," he said happily, kicking Ed's legs open. Ed was forced into a stance almost too wide for him to hold, and felt the beginning of real fear uncurl like a snake in his stomach. Ehren opened Ed's pants and they dropped several inches on his hips.

Hohenheim slipped the knife under the last rope with the second on the forest floor near his feet. He kept his eyes locked on the developing scene in front of him with his right hand cutting in rapid autopilot. He felt like a dog at the end of his leash knowing the chain would give way at any moment and he would charge. _He only hoped it would be fast enough_.

"Get off of me!" Ed cried, feeling the cool evening air rush over his hips with alarm. "Get off!" Ehren found these orders amusing and began uncontrollable snickering as he jerked Ed's pants down his thighs. "GET OFF!" Ed screamed, throwing an elbow back. Ehren took the blow to his jaw and didn't even flinch. Ed's strength was the meager force of a grade school child and Ehren made no attempt to even avoid them.

"If you apologize to me, I'll be nice," Ehren said, grabbing the cotton of Ed's undergarment in both fists and tearing.

"You FUCKING PIG!" Ed screamed, breaking into coughs with his outburst. Ehren ripped a wide splitting tear along the back of Ed's underwear exposing Ed's back, buttocks, and right thigh to the cold air. "Get off me before I fucking kill you!" Ed reached back and grabbed at whatever he could to defend himself, but Ehren kept his sensitive parts in safe distance and let Ed grope at the rest.

"Oh, look at you, you kinky thing," Ehren teased, slipping his finger into the belt running about Ed's waist for the automail and giving it a snap. "What's all this leather for? That boyfriend of yours tie you up like a little doggy?"

Ed was seething with this insult and with his face flat to the hood of the car lifted his gaze to his automail hand when it began tapping against the hood. The pointer and ring finger were smeared with blood. Ed glanced at it with alarmed curiosity, and realized, in the same moment he realized his hand was shaking, that his entire body was shaking. He was shaking because he was trapped, and without a way to fight, this was going to happen to him, and he was going to have to take it.

Hohenheim cut the final rope off him and stepped away from the tree.

Ehren leaned back from the long tear he'd made in Ed's clothing to look at the boy and Ed experienced a moment in his life where he considered begging. Should he beg and was it worth it? The word please rose up his throat and stopped on his lips. _Had it come to this? _And if it had, what would Alphonse think of him groveling and begging in hopes he could stop his own rape. It seemed more appropriate he just try and push through it, so when he had to confess to Alphonse, the way Alphonse demanded in the subtle undemanding way Alphonse wheedled all information out of him, he would at least know he wasn't lying when he said he sucked it up and did the best he could.

"You're so quiet now," Ehren said, noticing the change. Ed's thoughts had consumed him and he ceased all motor control. Ehren bent down to the frightfully thin and narrow frame of Edward's waist and considered Ed's pale cheeks. He reached forward and slid his warm hand up the right one and Edward's skin felt surprisingly soft and broke out into goose bumps. "Thinking of apologizing to me?"

Ed's head was doing loops and vomit had risen up the back of his throat and sat there tasting of bile and defeat. Ehren lifted a hand and spit onto his fingers and the sound of it startled Ed bad enough he jerked. It was the common sound of someone spitting with planned force so their saliva traveled and landed with appropriate aim. Ed had heard about this concept, using saliva as lubricant, but it seemed a defacing and mortifying thing to do when being intimate and he'd never experienced it. _Roy never would have done this to him._ Ehren spit on his next target, and Ed flinched and felt ashamed when the boy's warm saliva pegged his ass to the left of his cleft. For a moment the degradation was so intense the single flinch of his body responding to the touch and temperature was all there was, before the impact propelled an explosion that went off so loudly it filled Ed's head with white noise.

Ed broke out struggling with everything he had, and screamed. "I won't lie here for you, son of a bitch!" Reaching back with either hand he tried to grab anything he could pinch, rip, or stab with his fingers. "Come a little closer!" he taunted. "Bring that nice dick in reach and see what I do with it!" Ed lowered his voice and exhaled whatever sound he thought was menacing, but Ehren was on autopilot. Ehren moved them flush together, and with a palm on the back of Ed's head, pressed Ed's face to the hood as securely as if he were pinning down a small animal. "Stop it!" Ed screamed. He felt Ehren's hand moving about as the boy opened his own pants. "STOP IT! GET OFF!"

Ehren dodged the hand reaching for his head but this was the last straw for the boy. He cocked the gun and pressed it to Ed's right upper arm. When Ed reached backwards he fired. The bullet ripped through the automail and flew into the forest across the road.

_This was Hohenheim's last straw._ He appeared like a silent predator over Ehren's shoulder and readied the letter opener in his hand. Ed had silenced with the gunfire but now was screaming in a wild senseless tone of overwhelming panic and rage.

Hohenheim cupped his palm around Ehren's forehead and jerked the boy's head backward. It was a single fluid movement, and once looking up with his jaw stretched open and his Adam 's apple bobbing, Hohenheim brought the letter opener to the small pulsing nub and let the boy feel the blade.

Ehren froze at once, but Ed did not. Ed was too consumed trying to free himself to realize Ehren suddenly stopped moving.

"Drop it," Hohenheim said softly. Ehren dropped the gun at his side. Ehren was taller than Ed and the boy's ear was perfectly aligned with Hohenheim's mouth. With his voice calm and completely level, Hohenheim whispered, "Back up." Then he stepped back, and Ehren came with him. Ed was released from Ehren's hold. His clothing was ripped apart in back and with Ehren's leverage gone and his legs in a vertical split Ed's frantic clawing to escape tipped him to the side and Ed slid off the hood. "Ed!" Hohenheim called, wishing he did not have to stand with a knife to this German boy's throat and could go to Ed's side. "Edward!"

Ed hit the ground roughly and was pushing himself up with both hands before jerking his head around to answer Hohenheim's call.

Hohenheim stiffened with Ed's crazed expression. With Ed's hair a mess, his body pale and sweating, and his mouth and jaw coated and smearing blood about other parts of his face, Edward looked like something H.G. Wells or Mary Shelly would have created to run wildly through the woods preying on unsuspecting villagers. Edward's gaze was filled with such untamed aggression that he looked truly possessed up until his brain caught up with his vision and he realized he had just escaped a very close blow at the last second. Then suddenly Ed's expression was rushing with painful relief and gratitude as he stared at Hohenheim. Ed understood what had happened and what almost did, and he turned a dark gaze of precision on Ehren.

Ed grabbed at his pants and prepared to stand. "Hold him tight," Ed rasped, using the car for leverage and clamoring to his feet. Hohenheim understood the intent inside Edward's words. It was clear, _Hold him tight so I can beat the shit out of him for what he tried to do to me, _but considering Edward's condition he didn't understand how Ed could mean them. The movement disrobed Ed. His shirt fell off his good shoulder, and his pants slid down until they were only held up by his single hand. Ed looked down at this and a string of blood colored drool dropped from his mouth to the road.

"Ed." Hohenheim didn't know where to begin. Ed hiked the rim of his pants up and zipped his fly. "Can you breathe all right?" Ed's breathing sounded wet, but he managed to get to his feet in some type of adrenaline fueled hysteria and extended his hand in a wanting gesture.

Hohenheim looked at Ed's palm with confusion. He didn't understand what Ed was asking for. Ed was holding up his pants, with his dress shirt untucked, wrinkled, stained, and everything ripped open in the back like a gutted sack, but Ed looked confident.

"Give me the knife," Ed said flatly.

Ehren gave a small frightened gasp, but Hohenheim did not respond. When he was over a hundred and twenty years old, and traveling with a young group well outside of Amestris during the largest war of the 1800s, he had witnessed a crime of passion. It was the last crime of such a nature he believed he'd ever need to recognize it. How many people had he seen kill one another, at least thousands, and it took thousands to be able to understand it as much as he thought it could be understood.

Hohenheim looked at Edward's open blood smeared hand and thought about how, in a moment of passion, Edward might kill this other boy. Crimes of passion did not have to equate the logic of law's eye-for-an-eye or alchemy's equivalent exchange, and it was this exact variable that allowed them to qualify as crazed unstoppable acts. It could, and sometimes did allow, a level headed individual to forget their ideology and respond with the impulsiveness of their reign less free will. His hand tightened on the blade. He was not going to relinquish it to better equip Ed for a mistake he'd regret.

"What do the laws of alchemy say here Edward?" Hohenheim asked sharply. _He couldn't allow Ed to kill this boy._

"Alchemy does not exist here in Germany," Ed said, taking a limping step forward. Edward came quickly like a wounded but determined animal, and then pounced with the last wind of strength he could muster.

Hohenheim moved the knife just in time and Edward's right hook threw Ehren's face to the side, before Ed's left hook tossed it back. Hohenheim served as the wall for Ehren's beating. Ed was throwing accurate and malicious blows as if the German boy were a punching bag. Ed was crazed, and his adrenaline gave him the strength to continue until Hohenheim knew he was the only thing keeping Ehren upright.

"Ed, that's enough," Hohenheim said firmly, catching Ehren when he slumped to his knees. Ed grabbed Ehren's kneeling body for support and used him as a crutch to manage another blow. "Ed!" Hohenheim snapped, taking a tight grip on Ed's shoulder. Ed was swearing fiercely under his breath, and Hohenheim stuffed the knife back into his pocket. He wanted both hands accessible, and pressed it deeply inside so it would not be lost before realizing, dumbly, that Ed was not just swearing, he was speaking. It was low, muttered, and in a frenzy was slurring out in broken thoughts like that of a mental patient. Only select words were audible, and they were powerful and stuck like thorns.

_Alphonse, forgiveness, whore, and mercy_, were all words Hohenheim felt cut like knives. He dropped Ehren and grabbed Ed with both hands. Ed's wild twisted expression, tangled bangs, and the lowered gaze locked on Ehren until he was unconscious, kept Hohenheim from understanding that somewhere during the beating Ed had started a stress-induced involuntary crying, like that of one coughing too hard, and hadn't stopped. When Hohenheim managed the grip he wanted on Ed's shoulders, one capable of overpowering Ed to a cease if he needed to, Ed stopped and looked up with the tears running. On his right cheek they had cleared a path through the blood and that one skin colored streak struck Hohenheim the hardest.

"Ed," Hohenheim whispered, voice filled with pain.

The minute Ed stopped beating Ehren; he lost his fuel and collapsed along side and on top of the boy. Hohenheim dropped to his knees and hoisted Ed's top half into his arms. He cradled Ed in a tight hug with Ed shaking uncontrollably and staring wide eyed at Ehren's crumpled body. "Ed, he didn't hurt you," Hohenheim whispered, rocking quickly where he sat. "He didn't hurt you."

Ed inhaled a gargling breath and pointed at Ehren, before down the road, and then to the car as if he had too many thoughts to manage a single word. "My—my—my," Ed stammered. Hohenheim began nodding. He understood. _They needed to leave immediately._ Although the other two boys seemed lackluster in comparison to Ehren's intentions they were still a threat he wanted to avoid. "My arm!" Ed was horrified with the damage to the automail.

"Let's take a look at it," Hohenheim said, bringing his hand to Edward's tattered shirt. A few of the buttons were still holding it closed and he popped them before Ed voiced a new concern.

"My pants!"

"Let's fix them." Hohenheim grabbed the rim sitting just below the juncture of Ed's thighs and body and hoisted them up.

Ed flinched and turned his head to the side giving fast apprehensive breaths when he felt his stomach rock. Quickly Ed said, "Gonna be sick." He pulled in Hohenheim's arm, trying to tip himself closer to the road the way one aims for a bucket. "I am gonna be sick!"

"Ed, try and keep yourself from losing your stomach cont…" Hohenheim silenced when Ed vomited. With care he released Ed from his arms, and left Ed holding himself up from the road. He needed to prepare them to leave, and went quickly to the car. He opened the back door and draped the backseat with the blanket to protect it from their soiled clothes and the blood Ed was drooling. At the far end he threw a pillow and returned to Ed's side. Ed was dry heaving into the puddle he'd made, and shaking so badly he looked to be vibrating. Without realizing, Hohenheim lowered his voice to a tender intimate tone and said, "You're coming with me now." He hoisted Ed upward until Ed was kneeling and spitting into the soup of bile.

Ed cleared his sinuses and spit to the road. "That mother fucker!" Ed was licking his lips and trying to clean his mouth. "You can't just…" Ed spit a mess of blood and saliva into his vomit, "…can't just take advantage of me because of my sexuality! That god damn piece of shit!"

"Ed."

"Thinks I'll be his stooge! His cute little bitch!"

Hohenheim hent Ed's shoulders and prepared to pull Ed to his feet, but Ed protested.

"Careful!" Ed cried, indifferent to the visible tears streaming down his face. "It's broken! Something's shattered." Ed jerked free of Hohenheim's grip. "My freaking fucking arm."

Hohenheim knelt down and while frantically stripping Ed's shirt off his arm he looked up and searched the road for their returning visitors. Ehren had said ten minutes and he felt they were pressing their luck. He husked Ed's arm of his shirt in unforgiving yanks and the automail had a hole blown in one end and out the other. On either side the plastic bicep had split and cracked, with that about the hole curling inward on the backside of the arm, and outward on the front like a bullet fired through a tin can.

Ed took one look at his hallowed out arm and began laughing the bizarre laugh of the insane. "Oh," Ed said, laughing heavily through his tears. Ed's breathing had been struggling before the laughter, but with it, Ed sounded as if he were in a pool of water and couldn't manage a straight breath without some type of sputtering choke. "That's fan-fucking-tastic!" Ed's laugher began crumbling to a sorrow ridden tone wobbling his bottom lip. "I broke it so quickly. _ I broke it!_" Ed was devastated.

With the arm wounded and sharp it couldn't stay attached. Quickly, Hohenheim made the decision to detach it and didn't consult Ed. With Ed's odd behavior he felt abandoned in an equation where there should be two acting entities. For the time being Ed was incapacitated, and he felt a new strength take hold of him. It empowered him with the right to any action in Ed's favor. It was his responsibility to care for the boy when he could not care for himself, and babbling nonsense in murderous rage, Ed was not thinking clearly.

"Don't take it off!" Ed wheezed, wiggling when Hohenheim unstrapped the leather and the arm separated. Ed was horrified and was shaking his head frantically. "Please put it back on! I need my arm!" Ed grabbed at Hohenheim's coat, and Hohenheim ignored this. He pushed the arm to Ed's chest and Ed hugged it with his good arm as he suspected Ed might. Then he lifted Ed like a bride and carried him to the car.

Ed startled with the lift and engulfment of Hohenheim's arms, but was slack with exhaustion. "Put…" Ed wheezed, struggling to keep his eyes open. "…my arm…back…on."

Ed grabbed at his pants when his body was lifted. It was a clinging grasp of desperation, like a soldier groping his own torso after a bomb to verify he still owned it. Hohenheim could feel the shreds Ed's clothing had become, and for the moment, tried to ignore this.

"Hohenheim?" Ed rasped.

Hohenheim carried Ed to the car and bent in enough to lay Ed back on the seat. Feeling unqualified he wanted to leave the forest as soon as possible and get Ed to a proper doctor. Fever was visible in Ed's face, and he stroked Ed's wet bangs from his forehead with care. "Ed, lay still, try and rest, we'll get back to the city quickly, understand?"

Ed grabbed Hohenheim's arm. "Please put it back," Ed choked, giving a deep cough. "I only have one!"

"Okay." Hohenheim drew the seat belt out and buckled about Ed's waist with Ed panting. "Try and rest Ed." He was climbing out when Ed started coughing, and it was the chest rumbling hack of respiratory disease that stopped Hohenheim as powerfully as a stroke half outside the car. He staggered through the step he was taking and turned around with cold fear sending a tiny sweating panic down the middle of his back. Ed was covering his mouth unable to stop the coughing and Hohenheim first heard and then saw the blood Ed brought up. It dripped down from the bottom of Ed's palm and Hohenheim scrambled into the back of the car and shut the door behind him. He jerked Ed's palm from his mouth and looked at the red blood in panic. Ed was also looking at it with a bit of shock as he caught his breath.

"This means…" Ed rasped, lifting his gaze questioningly. "…I am dying…right?"

"No," Hohenheim said firmly. _He was not letting something so trivial stop his son_. He climbed out of the cab took Ehren's Luger from the road and climbed into the driver's seat. With an inexorable sense of determination he turned the engine and peeled out. The speed rattled the slimsy make of the car, and Ed startled with the shudder of its frame and gripped the seat for leverage. He lay hiccupping shallow breaths with concentrated effort to keep his lungs under control, but it was useless. He broke into another coughing fit in minutes, and Hohenheim looked over his shoulder and barked Ed's name angrily. _"Ed!"_ Ed was coughing into his arm and bringing up blood. "For god's sake Edward, you must fix your vision and focus everything on controlling your breathing!" Ed wanted to retort, but he couldn't speak so short of breath. Angrily, he spit a small mouthful of blood at the floor, and Hohenheim interpreted this action correctly. "You understand what will happen if you can't breathe?" Hohenheim asked, returning his gaze to the road.

He didn't want to think about it. The letter opener in his pocket felt heavy because he knew he'd use it like a knife. He'd heat the tip with fire to disinfect it, and hold Ed down if he had to. Rather than let the boy suffocate he'd cut Ed's throat directly below his voice box so Ed could breathe.

Hohenheim put nearly forty minutes of distance between them, the gate, and their visitors, before pulling the car to the side and returning to the back of the cab. "Now listen to me," he said softly, climbing in and managing with the tiny bit of space between the front and back seats. "I am going to take us back to the city and we'll have a doctor look at your chest, but for now we have to clean you up some." Ed was wheezing as he listened to this and did not look impressed. They looked like grave robbers before the fight. Climbing up from the earth the soil was painted down parts of them, and their heads were dirt mops. The blood from the gate had soaked into the bottoms of their pants, and splattered about in a way that couldn't have been helped. To return to a civilized area looking as they did and hoping to go unnoticed would be suicide.

Hohenheim reached to the remaining four buttons of Ed's shirt. Ed had rebuttoned them and they held the blood splattered and dirt streaked shirt about his torso like a flour bag cast over a twig. "I want to see your chest," Hohenheim said. "Let me take a look at you." With the missing arm Ed's chest once again looked incomplete with only the stump. "I'll get you some water so you can rinse your mouth." He glanced at Ed's blood smeared jaw. Ed's bottom lip was wobbling in a constant dance, and Hohenheim did his best to ignore it. He spread Ed's shirt and underwear and exhaled a slow controlled breath on sight of the bruise spreading across Ed's chest. It was a dark unsightly blemish, but it somehow seemed as if it should have been there all along. Ed looked down at it and whimpered a soft noise.

"I…" Ed whispered, licking his lips with his brain loose like a run away train. "…I want Alphonse." Hohenheim was disturbed hearing this. To his knowledge Ed hadn't cried for his brother in years. This helped further shake the situation into one in which Ed lost all resemblance to him, and appeared more like the boy he used to know than the young man he seemed. "I want him," Ed whimpered, speaking softly to himself. "I want to go home."

Hohenheim leaned down and pressed his ear to Ed's chest. Ed's breathing made a cave like whooshing noise, and at the end of each exhale and the start of each inhale there was a deep congested sound that shouldn't be. Hohenheim lifted his head with confusion such an intense sound was being caused by Ed's chest alone. He took hold of Ed's chin. "Open your mouth," he asked kindly. Ed obliged. "Is there anything in your mouth?" Hohenheim asked. Everything inside Ed's mouth was a deep red with the blood and it smelled raw and awful, but Ed shook his head. "Throat?"

Ed closed his mouth and licked his lips. "I need my arm."

Hohenheim returned his palm to Ed's chest and felt the bruise. It was hot like Ed's flushing body and he stroked his hand up to the stump shoulder to make sure it wasn't injured but Ed broke out wiggling. Almost instantly Ed's hand shot out and grabbed Hohenheim looking uncomfortable.

"Did you see?" Ed asked, still lost somewhere in hysteria. "Did you see him try to fuckme like that? Out in the open!"

Hohenheim covered Ed's mouth with his hand impulsively. He couldn't stand the idea of this notion. The existence of it disturbed him to his core, and he couldn't bear to hear it aloud. It bred a desperation, of unspeakable will to remove the threat, to evade the fear it caused, and somehow it seemed Ed was in a similar place. His trembling had increased rapidly with his thoughts, and Hohenheim could feel Ed's jaw line shaking under his fingers.

"I am no one's tool!" Ed cried, ignoring the palm blanketing his mouth. Ed's raised voice brought about coughing and Hohenheim kept his hand in place until Ed was done and small speckles of blood filled his palm. "Not his," Ed rasped. "Not Roy's, not freaking anyone's."

Hohenheim wiped his bloody hand on his pants and returned it to Ed's chest. He stroked downward quickly, feeling for anything broken that might have pierced Ed's lungs to cause the blood, but Ed's ribs felt intact. Ed squirmed uncomfortably when Hohenheim reached his navel. "Stop touching me," Ed croaked, whining uneasily. Hohenheim carefully rocked his hands over Ed's organs to feel their placement and condition. "Stop touching me like this!" Ed cried. Hohenheim stopped and looked up. Ed was fidgeting uncontrollably with a look of frightened misery across his features. He was as powerless now as he was draped across the hood of the car and Hohenheim saw the same alarm in Ed's face.

"Ed, I won't hurt you," Hohenheim said gently. He had to be sure, with such a long drive ahead of them, that nothing serious and in need of immediate attention was wrong. Ed looked incredibly troubled with these words and swallowed roughly. "I have never professionally practiced medicine, but surely you don't think I've lived this long without picking up a thing or two." He tried for humor but Ed wasn't biting.

"You're not a doctor," Ed rasped, managing a firm tone. "I don't want you to play doctor with me."

"I am not playing," Hohenheim said kindly, sliding his palm to the bottom of Ed's navel to feel Ed's Appendix and Bladder.

Ed physically shuddered and arched his back in a slight and quick gesture to escape. "I am not comfortable!" Ed reached down and shoved Hohenheim's hand off and tried to pull his shirt together with his single hand. Ed was panicked and clung to his shirt as if it could protect him, and as if he wanted protection.

Hohenheim was stunned Ed would feel so strongly. Logic said he would not hurt the boy, so the obstacle Ed felt existed was lost on Hohenheim. It made Edward's irrational response to aid logic-less, but not human-less, and Hohenheim paused in mental effort to understand, rather than identify, what Ed was doing. Ed was struggling to clear his throat and keep his coughs to a minimum. He seemed miserable, but not as if he had more to say.

"Edward," Hohenheim said softly, trying to find the question he wanted to ask. He shifted his weight thoughtfully and began to speak but stopped when Ed recoiled. Ed squirmed his hips closer to the back of the seat in a quick and reflexive response meant to avoid danger, and flinched powerfully because the movement was painful.

This wasn't lost on either of them, and Ed's look of dread tripled when Hohenheim's gaze dropped to Ed's waist, the source of apparent tenderness and whatever Ed was hiding. With grave concern Hohenheim lifted his gaze to Ed, and Ed's widened with new alarm.

Ed knew he had given away the fact he was injured and where as dumbly as a child stuffing a toy too large to hide behind his back. "_Don't you dare," _Ed hissed, clamping his single hand down on his pants.

"Ed."

"Leave me—alone," Ed rasped.

"Ed, be reasonable," Hohenheim said kindly, taking hold of Ed's pants over either hip bone.

"No!" Ed hung on tight when Hohenheim pulled them down a few inches. "No, no!"

"Ed, just let me take a look at you. I give you my word I will not injure you further."

"No!" Ed cried, wiggling in a desperate attempt to win. "You're not looking at anything! If I…" Ed broke out coughing and kicked weakly when Hohenheim took his pants to his knees.

"Edward, stop getting yourself worked up," Hohenheim said, firming his voice to a scolding. "Son, I've helped you dress and bathed you. Stop this bashfulness; it's not good for your respiratory system."

Ed was shaking his head relentlessly as he struggled to gain vocal control again. With his single hand he kept a lifted spread palm over the tops of his thighs to ward Hohenheim off. His body was ramrod straight and stiff as a board with his anxiety, and Hohenheim could see Ed trying to argue but his words were being choked off and he couldn't take it. He clasped Ed's hand tightly in both his own and leaned down to the boy.

"Edward, I did see," he whispered. "I did see what happened." Ed was panting with his jaw tightly clenched and his eyes wide. "But I would never let that happen to you, and I know that may be hard to believe because you came so close, so I ask you to consider," he lifted Ed's hand to his cheek and held it there. "Think of all the years I have lived, and the places and people I've had the opportunity to learn from. Do you think something as silly as three young hooligans, can overcome something as old as this?" _Edward had never seen his ruthless side, and so he knew it was hard for the boy to fathom his strength. _"Now I haven't heard you call for your bother in a long time, so I know how upset you are." He found this an accurate statement. "But that doesn't mean I can ignore your physical self to prize your mental. You're coughing up blood Edward, and after all that just happened, you understand, before we can leave you unattended for several hours, I need to take a look at you."

Ed was swallowing roughly as he listened, and Hohenheim could see Ed finding his voice. "He…" Ed rasped, swallowing and managing weakly. "He didn't do anything to me." Ed pulled his hand away. "He didn't do anything to me."

"Okay," Hohenheim said gently. "Then let me look." Ed shook his head afraid, and the fear made it hard on Hohenheim. More than anything else he didn't want to scare his son. "What he was doing, is not what I am doing Edward." This was obvious to both of them, but it was something Ed needed to hear. After such an attack any touch was invasive, and Ed's charge to keep himself defended and safe was still very much alive.

"I know that," Ed snapped, looking only partly insulted. Hohenheim could see the relief hearing this caused. "But you're embarrassing me," Ed confessed reluctantly. "_It's embarrassing._" Ed was struggling to catch his breath so his breathing could stay even and not stress his lungs. "If he didn't do anything to me then there is nothing for you to examine. I am not undressing for you. It's embarrassing old man."

Hohenheim smiled. "And I will forego your dignity for your safety." Ed seethed an angry breath. "Also, for my own peace of mind which demands I know you are."

"You're a selfish asshole," Ed hissed, squirming his hips further toward the seat in dread. Hohenheim touched them politely. He ran his hands down over Ed's hip bones and Ed shuttered uncomfortably before stiffening his body uncooperatively when Hohenheim tried to roll him toward the seat. "You're such an asshole!" Ed cried weakly, unable to do more than argue. "Hohenheim, I don't want you touching me anymore!" Ed wedged his hand to the back seat and used it to try and keep himself flat. "I am serious! Don't touch me!"

"Ed, behave," Hohenheim scolded, lifting Ed's hip a few inches and plucking at the tattered cotton. Ed was incredibly tense and with this meager lift his ripped undergarment displayed his left cheek and Hohenheim could see a scrape from the impact of the pavement. He glanced to Ed's face in hopes to gauge Ed's developing reaction, but Ed had tightly closed his eyes in endurance and seemed resigned. "I am not going to touch you," Hohenheim said. Ed ignored this. "I'll just look, and I'll ask to touch if I think I need to." Carefully he tipped Ed upward a bit more and looked over his son's rear. The road had hit hard and scraped Ed bloody along the bottom of his cheeks where he'd fallen to his weight. Visibly he confirmed the back of Ed's thighs, and most importantly, the priority of the prosthetic, to still be in safe condition. Politely he kept his hands to himself and glanced back up at Ed when he saw the boy's fingers moving.

Ed was fiddling restlessly with a button on his shirt and seemed to sense Hohenheim's raised gaze. "What's your diagnosis?" Ed asked softly, voice horse. Hohenheim considered this with dumb realization Ed was worried about his own health, and while worried, wanted reassurance. "I…" Ed muttered, cracking an eye and peeking down to him. "So much of me hurts it's…hard to…"

Hohenheim helped Ed return to lay flat and gave his son a smile. Ed was very discomfited but also terribly unsure. "Nothing is broken and nothing seems to have pierced your lungs." Ed gave a breath of relief. "We'll have your chest looked at, but the rest of you seems fine."This was his diagnosis and Ed looked glad to have it before a bit of confusion crept into his face.

"Yeah but," Ed said, giving a fast glance towards his waist.

Hohenheim smiled with understanding. "You skinned yourself falling to the pavement. We'll have the doctor clean and bandage it for you, and it will feel better." Ed looked happily confused with his own idiocy for not figuring out what the burning pain from his rear was. _Of course, a scrape, how_ _often did you fall bare assed to asphalt?_

Hohenheim left the car and from the trunk retrieved some water and wet a cloth. He helped Ed sit up so they could correct his appearance, and although very tired, Ed could manage this.

Ed wiped his face with the strength and coordination of toddler and Hohenheim remained patient in an effort to give Ed his independence. With Ed scrubbing the blood from his cheek he finally couldn't take it and wet a second cloth and wiped Ed's chest clean. Ed's fever was strong and his coughing kept the blood coming. "You know," Ed said, stroking repeatedly over his cheek. "If I die and Alphonse already died, that will probably be the quickest way to get back to him."

Hohenheim stopped washing. He was swiping his rag along Ed's pronounced collar bone when Edward said this, and slowly, he lifted an untrusting gaze to Ed's eyes.

Ed gave Hohenheim's look of worry a faint smile. "I mean that in a non-suicidal-way." Ed looked as if he would have chuckled if he had the strength. "Just a thinking-out-loud kind of way." Hohenheim resumed wiping up Ed's torso, and with Ed's chest clean Ed tugged his filthy underwear back to his shoulders. He fed his single arm in and wiped at his mouth after a cough brought a dribble of blood. "Do you think he's dead?"

Hohenheim considered Ed's words carefully. "Edward…" He had once spent years figuring out how to get back to Trisha because he knew if he could do it fast enough she would not have aged too greatly. "If I knew how to get you to your brother…" Ed was licking his lips when this sentence began and Ed's jaw almost dropped. "…at the cost of your life, would that be worth it to you?"

Ed was entirely captivated with the question before his face buckled with pain. "You think he's dead then?" Ed asked, tone breaking into a whine.

"I am just asking." Hohenheim clarified. "If the chance of reuniting with Alphonse is worth your life."

"The chance," Ed repeated. _Yes, the chance, not the success, only the chance._ "Yes," Ed whispered, closing his eyes with deep sincerity. "The chance, yes."

Hohenheim was surprised and a little sadden with Ed's immediate answer. "You forgo so much so quickly," he said, offering the small bottle of water he had retrieved. Ed took it and filled his mouth. "To get to where you want to go you'd give up your life, the possibility of love, of marriage, of children." Ed spit out the window and Hohenheim shook out a new shirt and drew it about Ed's shoulders.

"Did…you not…" Ed trailed off, voice running faint. Ed returned the bottle and Hohenheim took it before buttoning Ed together. Ed's underwear was still dirt stained and in shreds , but this would have to do. They were no longer put together enough they could easily change and drive back to Kempten. Hohenheim closed Ed's new shirt with Ed's eyes half open and very heavy. "Did you not…do the same?" Ed mumbled.

Hohenheim was opposed, even to this suggestion, and firmly said, "Not by choice Edward." He gestured Ed lay back, and Ed was relieved. "Not by choice at all." He balled together Ed's old shirt and handed it to the boy. "Now keep this to your mouth." Ed held it obediently in place. "Focus on keeping yourself relaxed and your breathing steady." Ed gave a soft nod and Hohenheim returned to the driver's seat.

Ed's answer would be something to think about.

* * *

This was an intense chapter – thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too bad for anyone, and I hope to hear all of your thoughts.

Coming closer to the end, if you are interested, please vote as to what I should post next via the poll in my profile. (We were tied up until yesterday). Rest assured I will be sure to confirm my posting-game plan and provide a calendar before this story is up, so you know what to expect.  
Chapter 16: _The Proliferative Stage, _will be up next Friday 4/26/13. Now…

…please review.

You were at least entertained, weren't you?  
That's worth one comment.


	16. The Proliferative Stage

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Sixteen  
_The Proliferative Stage_

- mirage -

"Hohenheim." Graham was arguing from the moment he answered the door and caught sight of Hohenheim's disheveled form and Ed who looked like death at his side. "This is neither the time nor the place." Hohenheim had Ed's arm looped over his neck and as soon as Graham opened the door he was pushing inside. "No Hohenheim," Graham said firmly, stepping aside so as to avoid being trampled. "He needs to go to a real hospital!"

Hohenheim had driven straight to Kempton without stopping once. After his first look at Ed he drove blindly forward with determination. For the most part Ed was half asleep with his coughs keeping him up and the loud motor of the car upsetting the way only laying so close to a loud motor was. With Ed in the condition he was they needed to return to Munich. The day was becoming bright with morning's glow when Hohenheim pulled Ed to Graham's door and brought his fist down upon it.

Graham's loft was still dim and the man was in his nightgown, but the indoor warmth was a grave improvement from the poorly insulated car. With Ed in the backseat ill for nearly twelve hours, Hohenheim had taken the only optimistic position he could: the cold air would help combat Ed's fever.

"Hohenheim!" Graham let them in but shut the door in more of a slam. "I am not the sort of doctor who can treat everything." Graham sounded exasperated.

Hohenheim walked quickly into the open loft and toward the first chair he saw. Like his office, Graham had experiments and projects open in all areas and Hohenheim was mindful of them even in his panic.

Set in what would have been a living room area; Hohenheim approached a straight backed chair, lifted the jar containing a single tree frog from its seat, and dropped Ed into it. Ed had begun wheezing two hours into the ride and since had been coughing up dark blackened clumps as if the gate had left a layer of silt inside him. Hohenheim had never seen this before, and was hoping to all hope Graham could understand it.

Hohenheim handed Ed the jar and laid his hand on Ed's head. "Breathe easy now," he instructed softly, before turning to Graham.

Graham looked thoroughly annoyed. "Do you have any idea what time it is?" Graham asked, standing with his arms crossed and his hair a puffy cloud about his void scalp. _Yes, Hohenheim knew how early it was_, but with this question he only gapped because it seemed so insignificant. "Hohenheim you must listen to reason," Graham pleaded.

"You've seen him before," Hohenheim said, voice desperate. "I haven't the time to deal with the pleasantries of a hospital." He turned to Ed and unbuttoned Ed's coat with impressive speed. Ed was holding his original shirt to his mouth as he'd been directed and it looked as if it were stained with engine grease. "I have never seen this before Graham." He ripped Ed's shirt open with shaking hands and Ed sat the jar between his knees in order to grasp Hohenheim's hip for balance. Inside the jar the frog stood up on its hind legs and reached toward the lid. Its large suction tipped fingers were sprayed against the side and looked like the bottom of a star fish.

Hohenheim yanked Ed's coat down his arm and after unbuttoning his underwear opened the fabric on Ed's chest as if he were spreading a curtain. Graham squinted his gaze with intrigue, and Hohenheim looked back toward the old man with hope Graham's medical knowledge would motivate him with obligation once he saw Edward's injury. It was a growing dark spot like a cancer.

"What in heaven's name…" Graham said softly, adjusting his glasses and approaching quickly. "What has this boy gotten himself into?" Graham asked, staring at what looked to be an ink mark on Ed's chest.

"He was struck in the chest," Hohenheim explained, pushing Ed's dress shirt off his good shoulder and pulling it downward toward his bicep.

"All right, all right," Graham snapped, waving Hohenheim away as if shewing a small animal. "Stop pulling on him." Graham came forward, and Hohenheim stepped back in absolute surrender. Graham was the only one he knew and trusted enough with Edward. In this world Graham was the best doctor he had met and he had kept the friendship tight because he wanted to share what knowledge he had so that Graham might share it with his country.

Graham laid his hands on either side of Ed's chest as if he were examining a painted canvas. "Edward, now fix your eyes on me young man," Graham instructed, touching only the bottom and top of the dark bruise. "Goodness," Graham said softly, testing the corners of the wounded skin but the shade was sharp everywhere and looked too even and too dark to be anything but dead flesh. Hohenheim had seen enough death over the years to know that color was the exact color of a rotting corpse, and seeing a large section of it suddenly bloom on Ed's torso was scaring ice into his veins.

"I…" Ed said softly, lowering the shirt he had flush to his mouth the slightest bit. "I am sorry we're here so early." Graham gave this a hospitable smile. "Unannounced."

"Oh, don't you worry about that," Graham said. "Now, tell me what hit you."

"An asshole."

Graham gave Ed a sharp look of disapproval and left for supplies.

"We were attacked by robbers," Hohenheim said quickly. Graham grabbed his black medical bag and stethoscope. All of his supplies were in reach and Hohenheim watched Graham push a large heavy book off the medical bag and shake the stethoscope out from under several sheets of notes. "He was struck in the chest and took a few blows." Hohenheim stepped out of the way and realized he was holding his hands in a tight clasp but couldn't seem to manage a pose of less alarm.

"All right then," Graham said, fixing his stethoscope into his ears.

Ed lowered the shirt from his mouth. "Can you get me a thermometer?"

Hohenheim went to Graham's black bag with Graham holding the diaphragm to Ed's chest and listening intently. "Breathe deeply for me Edward," Graham said, moving the device in a series of hops, as if trying to catch a small leaping flea. His expression was of tight concentration before growing agitated. "Edward, now breathe deeply for me. Do as I say boy."

Ed managed a gulping breath and lifted his gaze to Graham uncertainly. "Hurts," Ed croaked, trying to fill his lungs. "It hurts to fill my lungs."

"Do so boy," Graham ordered, adopting a stern tone. Graham placed a hand on Ed's back and held him between his palms as he worked. "Your breath is gargled." Ed was inhaling as heavily as he could and cringing with his exhales. "It's likely you may have some blood in your lungs." Hohenheim pointed to the shirt Ed held at his mouth. Graham stepped behind Ed's chair and placed the diaphragm to Ed's back. "It's choppy but…"

Hohenheim retrieved a thermometer and stood squeezing it in suspense. "Is there a way we can stop the bleeding?" he asked. His greatest fear while he was driving them back was that Edward's lungs would begin filling and he'd be forced to puncture something the best he could or Ed would drown. _Edward's bloody coughs frightened him more than he'd like to admit._

Graham looked up with his mouth twisted down in a frown below thoughtful eyes. "I don't think he is," Graham said, stepping back and adjusting the stethoscope from his ears. He crossed his arms and considered Ed critically. Ed returned the gaze looking near unconscious with his hot sweating and tired eyes. "Son, get to your feet." Graham extended a hand and fluttered his fingers in a gesture meaning Ed should rise.

"I am short of breath," Ed protested.

Graham gave this complaint a scolding frown. He went to Ed's side and pulled the boy upright with a tight grip on Ed's arm. Ed wobbled unsteadily but did his best to obey. The jar with the frog slipped to the floor from between Ed's legs and rolled beneath the chair with the small amphibian seeming none too alarmed.

"Now stay put," Graham said, returning the diaphragm to the bottom of Ed's ribs. "I want you to hum now, hum a tune. I need to hear your lungs." Graham bent down so his head was leveled with the placed stethoscope tunable, but Ed looked utterly perplexed.

"What?" Ed rasped.

"Hum!" Graham ordered, rolling his hand in a hurrying motion.

"Graham." Hohenheim politely intervened when he saw Edward's confusion and Graham responding poorly to Edward's lack of German obedience.

"You know a tune, don't you son?" Graham asked, with a tone that implied Ed certainly did. "Hum it then," Graham ordered sternly before shooting Ed a harsh look. Ed was licking his lips nervously until Graham glanced upward, and then Ed startled into song. Muffled and cracked Ed was humming quietly looking awkwardly uncomfortable with it. Graham was satisfied with this and eagerly slid the diaphragm about the base of Edward's bruise.

It took a minute, longer than Hohenheim would have liked to think, before he recognized Edward's notes. It was a simple melody, and Hohenheim realized out of every song Edward had ever heard, he was instinctively humming a piece of music known to only four people. With two of them on the other side of the gate, it just so happened the remaining two were in this room, and Hohenheim was stunned when he heard the song only Trisha used to sing rasping from Ed's throat. Suddenly it seemed so familiar he couldn't believe he had forgotten it. _Trisha's song_.

It brought her back with the velocity of a smell, and he could see her clearly. In the evening she would sit at the bottom of the boys' bed holding their hands and humming as they fell asleep. She had only one melody, and when they were sick she would hold them and walk slowly about the house singing it. Alphonse had so many ear infections when he was a toddler, and with him tucked into her arms, Ed would stand at her feet clutching her dress and waiting.

Hohenheim glanced at Graham with a bit of embarrassment. In an odd way he felt exposed because before the boys were born that was her song, and she gave it only to him. Hearing it now, from Edward's throat, it were as if Ed were violating the memory of the woman she was before her children, and that was something Hohenheim wanted left alone.

Hohenheim unclasped his hands and forced himself to take a breath. He needed a break, a long walk, a morning to himself. The emotional weight flowing from Amestris was crippling and having Edward here was holding the wound open. He was scared for his son, this was true, and prized Edward's mental and physical health above all else, but, this did not mean he was less of a person and more of a father. He had lived for centuries and done so alone. It was impossible to over the course of less than two full decades transform into a co-dependent entity. He needed his space and time, and this did not mean he loved Edward any less.

Graham was pleased with Ed's humming and was studying Ed's chest with excitement. "Good boy!" Graham congratulated. "That's it." Graham stood quickly and beckoned Hohenheim to them. "His lungs have healed up nicely." Hohenheim didn't understood this when Ed was coughing up what looked like clumps of mud. _He feared the gate had found a way inside because he let Ed on to the circle. _

Graham pulled the chair away, gently kicked the jarred frog aside, and steadied Ed with a grasp to both his shoulders. "Where's the arm?" Graham asked, sounding perplexed and momentarily side tracked when his hand grasped the nub of Edward's socket.

"In the car." Graham guided Hohenheim to stand behind Ed. "It was damaged in the scuffle."

Graham lifted his gaze for a quick stare of intense disagreement, and Hohenheim understood Graham found this to be the dumbest thing they could have done in the man's mind. Ed was ignoring all of this, and stayed put with the indifference of total exhaustion. Once on his feet he closed his eyes and focused on breathing heavy breaths through his mouth.

"All right now," Graham said, sounding ready to begin an explanation before pausing as he took his first real look at Ed's clothing. "What, in the name of science, have you both been doing?" Graham asked, sweeping Ed's frame before looking to Hohenheim's soiled clothing as well. Graham looked opposed to the blood, but wasn't entertaining unethical possibilities. "You look like criminals."

"Yes," Hohenheim said, forcing a smile. He felt lost for a rational explanation. "I think we're both in need of a bath."

"You certainly are," Graham said, checking to make sure they stood aligned. "Now stand behind him there." Graham gave the side of Hohenheim's arm a pat. "You're both atrocious. Right after this you can wash up. Now, hold him up now"

Ed opened his eyes with cautious interest. "Why?" Ed rasped, glancing between Hohenheim and Graham uneasily. "What for?"

"Your lungs have healed up nicely boy, and they're getting better," Graham said optimistically. "In the bottom is scar tissue and stuff you don't want." Graham took the stained shirt Ed was still holding. "See this blood here." He showed them both the streaks of it. "Some of it fresh, but not much. Most of it is clotted and old. It needs to get out." Graham tossed the shirt aside. "It can't." Graham placed his hands on either side of Ed's rib cage and held the boy in a delicate grip. "Easy now Edward," Graham said kindly. "It's going to get better." Directly after these words Graham slugged Ed dead center between the ribs.

Hohenheim startled with alarm and caught Ed who flew back into him. With more panic than outrage he yelled, "Graham! What are you doing?"

Graham was unimpressed. "Hohenheim, get a hold of yourself," Graham scolded. Ed slumped into Hohenheim's chest choking on his air. "I need to loosen up this tissue so he can get it out." Ed doubled forward and Graham grabbed Ed's shoulders and straightened him. Ed tossed his single arm forward with his palm open in defense, but it was weak and Graham brushed it aside.

"You won't open the old wound?" Hohenheim asked. He knew of no science within Amestris or Germany that could help the type of injury Ed had. He was banking on Graham's developing medical knowledge that Europe would know what to do.

"On the contrary," Graham said, with a bit of insult. "I would hardly seek to further injury the boy of course." Ed began a choking sputtered sound as he tried to speak. Ed grabbed hold of Graham's arm and Hohenheim understood Ed had something to say about this and that it was most likely argument this was further injury. "Yes, I know," Graham said to Ed, brushing Ed's hand off. "I think another strong blow."

Ed jerked into Hohenheim and Hohenheim looked down at Ed's flesh hand when it reached back and fisted what it could of his coat. Ed was calling to him for safety, and with only one arm and both of them holding him in place, was wiggling with panic. The inability to breath was frightening.

"Oh, don't look so timorous boy," Graham teased. He stroked his right hand down Ed's bruise with consideration.

Ed was swallowing repeatedly, and managed to regain some of his voice. "No," Ed croaked, shaking his head emphatically. Ed covered his chest with his single arm for safety. "No—no…I can't bre…"

Graham pulled Ed's arm aside and said firmly, "I need to loosen it." Hohenheim felt rooted with terror. Much of him was in conflict he seemed to be aiding in abuse to Edward's body, but the rest of him, which he knew to be more rational, was trying to assure him this was best. With indecisive anxiety he took a tight grip on Ed's frame when Graham drew his hand back and threw a second solid blow into Ed's rib cage.

Ed broke out coughing a deep hollow bark that sounded much like a low honking boat horn. Graham look encouraged with this and was nodding with satisfaction.

Ed was choking like a child smoking his first cigarette. Every part of his diaphragm was contracting, and Hohenheim could feel Ed's horrific coughing bringing spasms to Ed's lungs and entire rib cage until it felt like Ed's muscular system was in seizure.

"Freaking stop!" Ed cried, managing a scream between his hacking. "You're a god damn lunatic!" Ed struggled in Hohenheim's grip. "Let me go!"

Graham looked unimpressed and annoyed, but none too surprised with Ed's behavior. "He'll push it up like this," Graham said, lifting a confident gaze to Hohenheim's pale expression. It was stricken in a way Graham had never seen, and the old man narrowed his eyes solicitously. Hohenheim looked more like the frightened parents who sat rigid and colorless hoping for a diagnosis they could understand, than the man of science Graham knew him to be. A sense of sympathetic regret came to Graham and he laid a hand on Hohenheim's shoulder with Ed hanging over Hohenheim's arm in an asthmatic fit.

Out of respect he owed it to Hohenheim to at least explain what the man was missing. "There's no good medicine," Graham said simply. This was the truth of it. There was no way to help the lungs. Nothing could get in, and things could not come out. He offered a candid shrug. "But we won't steer him down the wrong path." Ed began shaking his head with firm protest this _was _the wrong path. "I'll give him one more." Ed tossed his head in argument and the same gasping chokes came instead of words. "He's a good boy, yes?" Graham asked, giving Ed a reassuring smile. "You're ready for this, right? You can do it Edward." Graham lifted his gaze to Hohenheim and offered the warm expression of confidence he gave young mothers who surrendered their ill babies in helplessness.

"Yes," Hohenheim whispered softly. He straightened Ed flush to his chest. "He can take it."

Ed was not cooperating and Hohenheim took hold of Ed's wrist and held Ed's arm back.

"Yes, yes. There's a good boy." Graham threw a weak pulled punch into Ed's lower rib cage, before knocking heavily against the bottom of Ed's lungs. "Easy and just a few more." Hohenheim felt Ed's body and weight toss into him the same way Ehren's had. Then Ed was choking and coughing almost uncontrollably. "Here we are!" Graham said, pushing Ed's head down until Ed was bending over where he stood. "Push it up Edward, let your body cough son." Graham was patting Ed's back triumphantly before leaving for a bowl. As he returned he laughed at Hohenheim's white expression and held the bowl under Ed's face. "It's all right Hohenheim," Graham teased. "You look as though you've seen a ghost, but I guarantee it any reputable hospital would have done the same pending they could have diagnosed him correctly." Ed was buckling in Hohenheim's arms and Hohenheim lowered so Ed could drop to his knees. "Into the bowl Edward," Graham instructed, sitting it on the floor. Ed bent down, as if in prayer, and with his face nearly in the dish continued choking. Graham stood up and gave his head a thoughtful scratch. "He took that well."

"His chest has been weak ever since he's been in Germany. This aggravation of the wound has really put me on edge," Hohenheim confessed, but Graham waved this off. "There's really no better way?" Ed was spitting into the bowl and dry heaving up harsh sinus clearing noises.

"As soon as that's out of his lungs, breathing will be easier for him," Graham said. "Cleaner you see. You can't carry that, soon enough it would have become infected." Graham sounded annoyed with medical ignorance allowing this, and Hohenheim considered how any accuracy in this diagnosis and treatment would be the resounding mark in Ed's quest to full recovery.

Graham's few blows turned into a few more a half a hour later and Ed lost his tongue. "You're breaking my ribs!" Ed cried out, progressing from a weak protesting to a wild attempt to protect his throbbing body. In between the third and forth blow Ed threw a mean right hook and Graham relocated them to his study and put Ed stomach down on a lavish Victorian Redwood Chaise Settee.

"You think anything would be left of your ribs if I wanted after them?" Graham asked angrily. Graham sat at Ed's side and gently palpate the side of Ed's rib cage and between his shoulder blades. To Graham's credit Ed's breathing was deeper now, and Ed was eagerly filling his lungs with an ease denied to him for quite some time.

Graham knocked harshly into Ed's back as if rapping on an old box to shake the contents out. Ed took this much better and kept his teeth grit and his eyes jammed tight. Whatever was inside Ed's chest Graham seemed to be smacking free. Ed swallowed his argument and with as much composure as he could manage let the old man pound about the vertebrae of his spine as if kneading bread. It was evident Ed could feel the improvement even though it was painful and held still until intense bouts of coughing took him.

At half past six with Ed's chest hitching deep low motor sounds Hohenheim felt relief sweep over his earlier anxiety. Ed was dipping into a peacefully exhausted state and Hohenheim knew this meant Ed was no longer fearful of his ability to breath and was relaxing.

At this time, with morning looking gray with the winter cloud cover Hohenheim knew he needed to return the car, mend Ed's arm, and find them a place to stay. Attentively he stayed at Ed's side, even when Ed ignored him, and it was not until Graham stepped back and leaned into his desk smoking a pipe that the treatment seemed over. Ed kept the bowl, spitting up whatever he could, and sounded sick with pneumonia but was capable of repeatedly filling his lungs when Hohenheim felt it was time to speak.

"I hate to leave his side, but I need to complete a few errands," Hohenheim said, taking a handkerchief from his pocket and giving his face a wipe. Graham was puffing quick smoke rings with a thoughtful frown across his features. "Would that be all right?"

Graham indicated the door with his pipe. "I don't think it's too much trouble." Graham clamped the pipe between his teeth and huffed a deep throated laugh. "Although you may want to clean up first."

Hohenheim gave a nod and knelt along side Ed. Ed was awake and listening so he stroked a hand through the boy's hair and gave his shoulder an affectionate pat before leaving. He retrieved their suitcase from the car and using Graham's lavatory sink washed himself and changed his clothing. When he looked pristine once again, he began a drive to return the car and then planned to find a good Toy Store.

Ed lay in Graham's study feeling a bit abandoned but too exhausted and in pain to truly care. For nearly ten minutes there was nothing but the smell of Graham's Prince Albert Pipe Tobacco as he stood smoking before he spoke. "Edward, I am leaving you to put myself together. Stay where you are and don't touch anything boy." Graham left, and Ed closed his eyes and relaxed in a state where inhaling was a taxing effort and exhaling felt painfully hot. Then Graham returned, dressed comfortably in a cutaway morning coat and stiff collared shirt. "Son?" Graham bent down and laid a hand on Ed's forehead. Ed ignored this and listened to Graham walk back into the room until the man returned and was prodding at him. "How's the chest?" Graham asked, bringing a thermometer to Ed's lips.

"Throbs," Ed muttered, taking the glass stick obediently. He had wanted one for a while to see how warm he was.

"Breathing easier?"

"I think but…with the pain…it's hard to tell."

"That will pass," Graham said confidently. "You're breathing is easier, I can hear as much. Turn round for me." Ed rolled to his back slowly and his lungs seemed to slide and fall inside him. It felt odd to detect them as a separate part, like a broken pipe in a working unit. Yet the warmth of this injury seemed to hold hopeful progression the same way first lifting the automail created a burning screaming pain but allowed the limb to move. With mobility there was hope, and with deep breaths there was a chance. "You've done great," Graham congratulated warmly.

Ed was still when the old man pulled the skin down below his eyes and felt the glands in his throat. Everything appeared fine and Graham took hold of Ed's wrist to check his pulse.

Ed pulled the thermometer from his mouth and read it. "I am pushing 102. Do you have a cloth I can put on my head?"

Graham was monitoring his watch and smiled. "The patient diagnosis himself," Graham said with a brief chuckle before leaving for one. He returned with two wet rags, small bag of ice, shallow glass bowl and scalpel. "You can place that on your forehead," Graham said, offering the cloth. Ed did so with anxious desire to break his fever, but the cold cloth instead awakened a sense to wet his chest. His rib cage was on fire, and Ed looked down at the black patch on his body with the desire to throw a bucket of water on a dying fire.

Graham had a similar notion. He laid the second wet towel over what was beginning to look more and more like the rotten spot of a peach, before setting the small bag of ice water on top.

The cold was intense and Ed hissed, but already it was penetrating inside his pectorals and felt refreshingly cooler.

"Now Edward, while your father is out I want you to stay on this settee." Graham took Ed's limp flesh arm and gently slipped the shallow bowl beneath his elbow. "You seem to be battling whatever illness has taken you, and we'll help fight that as well." Ed looked down at his arm when a cold alcohol soaked rag was scrubbed over his antecubital area where his arm naturally bent.

"What are you doing?" Ed asked. After surgery Pinako was very scared of disease and when the IV went in and out Ed would feel her scrubbing his entire arm with disinfectant in the same fashion Doctor Gratter was now.

"We'll do a bit of blood-letting, and help stimulate you into making fresh healthy blood for your system," Graham said, lowering the knife to Ed's cephalic vein. Ed recoiled his arm with a bit of uncertainly, but Graham kept a tight grip so it did not move off the dish. "Don't be squeamish now boy." Graham teased, making a small incision. Ed flinched with the cut and watched a small pool of blood grow above it. "You keep your arm there while you lay and rest." Slowly the blood welled until it trickled down the side and dripped from the bottom of Ed's elbow into the dish. "When your father returns we'll see about the rest of you."

Hohenheim returned nearly two hours later carrying a single shopping bag. With Graham in the lab he stopped in horror on sight of Ed on the couch. He dropped the bag to his feet and rushed to Ed with a single and low curse.

Ed felt Hohenheim advance on him like a tiger pouncing. He startled where he lay resting and lifted his head enough the cloth slid over his eyes. "What?" Ed croaked, sounding worried.

"For all the…" Hohenheim said, pressing his thumb over Ed's punctured arm. He snapped the cloth off Ed's forehead and pressed it to Ed's arm to stop the bleeding. Ed was startled with the irate behavior. He trained his gaze on Hohenheim with a fragile expression of guilt, and although silent, was urgently seeking an explanation. Hohenheim felt himself become tongue tied. How was it possible to explain the silliness in the world. "No Edward," Hohenheim said kindly. "We don't agree with this."

"With what?"

Hohenheim flexed Ed's arm closed to help stop the bleeding by lifting his wrist to his shoulder. "This practice of blood-letting." He took the china bowl holding Ed's most vital liquid to Graham's desk. With Ed laying still there was only a small spill of blood, but like thin tomato soup, it was enough to make the bottom red. "Its barbaric medieval medicine and it will become outdated."

Ed eyes widened with alarm. "You said he was a good doctor!"

Graham returned to the room in route to his desk with a notebook in hand and a pen in his mouth. He glanced over with disinterest and was pleased with Hohenheim's recognizable state.

"You!" Ed propped himself up on his elbow and narrowed an accusatory gaze on Graham. "What kind of quack medicine are you giving me here!" Ed shook the cloth off his arm to emphasize the incision and placed it back on his forehead.

Hohenheim closed his eyes and scolded himself. _He should have known better, after all this time, simply known better than to give Ed any type of focus for agitation._ "He is," Hohenheim said firmly, feeling relived when Graham sniffed with a bit of annoyance but otherwise ignored Ed. He retrieved a beaker off his desk and left. "This world simply does not know everything yet Edward."

Ed wrinkled his expression with disgust. "Well then why don't you _tell_ them if it's so great, _if they're so great_," Ed said snottily. "You left me here, and I let him do this, because you said he was good. You didn't have any complaints when he was beating the shit out of me!" Ed struggled to sit up and the cloth slipped over his rosy cheeks and fell to his lap.

Hohenheim extended an open palm to Ed's movement. "Don't get up. You're not ready yet."

Ed lifted an eyebrow with tired surprise. "I am always ready," Ed said weakly. Hohenheim cracked the smallest smile. "Just point me in the right…" Ed lifted his flesh hand and pointed forward from his nose before teetering. "…in the right…" Ed was dizzy with the loss of blood and looked confused at first before dropping an astonished gaze to the tiny slice in his arm. "That hack-job doctor is trying to take me out."

Hohenheim grasped Ed's shoulders and laid him back. "Quiet," he ordered kindly. "Edward, you're a mess." Ed receded and closed his eyes were he lay. "Try and rest up, we'll need to leave soon." Ed lifted a weak hand and waved this away. Hohenheim caught it on the way down and gave Ed's thin hand a tight squeeze before returning to the main room of Graham's loft.

Graham was seated at a long narrow table with several Bunsen burners on and a large conical flask bubbling. He looked up when Hohenheim approached and gestured to the second of two cups of coffee he had at his side.

Hohenheim smiled graciously. "I should pay you for your trouble."

Graham held up a hand, pipe puffing away and protruding from his mouth the way a pipe comically did from a snowman. "You should," Graham agreed, "but I won't accept it. If you consider the chain of events Hohenheim, a drugstore cowboy could have done what I did to your son." Graham found this funny and chuckled to himself. "And rightly so. Hohenheim, excuse my forwardness but your son is a cocky, fat headed boy." Graham lifted his pipe from his mouth and gave it a shake to punctuate his words. "You should have disciplined him harder in his raising."

Hohenheim lifted his cup of coffee thoughtfully. There was some truth to Graham's words. He had completely abandoned Ed in his raising. What few years he was there for were spoiled in his inability to deny the boys almost everything they wanted. In the end all he could forcibly commit to was a firm bedtime, and this was largely in part to his own selfishness. After the boys went down Trisha became his again, and he was unwilling to share their time at night with the children.

Hohenheim took a sip of coffee and lifted his gaze to the window. Along the bottom Graham had notes taped up and several equations half finished. Above these few pieces of paper he had a view of the building's back alley and courtyard. He watched a young boy to the adjacent building exit the back of the interior market and lug a crate of trash into the alley.

"Next time observe the convenience of a hospital Hohenheim," Graham said, looking up from his notes and breaking Hohenheim's thoughts. He was remembering Trisha's violet nightgown and how the straps would slip down her right shoulder whenever she laid on her side. "Honestly." Graham pushed the open notebook toward Hohenheim and scribbled about the pages was a science he was beginning to see more and more. It was known as quantum mechanics, and also atomic theory. Graham was dabbling in it the way most of them were. It held promise, and Hohenheim felt he had gained a knack for sniffing out what would be the next big thing. He sensed much of it here and with Einstein.

Graham's work was largely undone, with scribbled thoughts and equations. From one friendly man of science to another, the notebook felt like what a simple civilian received when discovering a word find in the newspaper. They teased each others minds in order to explore the unknown, and Hohenheim was happy to commit the truths Amestris had provided to the flow of the world in Europe. After all, each side of the gate held the same human zeal for life. In the end, there were far more similarities than there were differences, and for nearly an hour he combed through the pages and offered up his secrets.

When he finally returned to Graham's office the single lamp cast a soft glow on Ed's sleeping form. Ed had curled himself up on his side and was breathing faintly looking so at peace Hohenheim felt guilty waking him.

"Edward?" He dropped a hand to Ed's shoulder and shook gently. Ed didn't move, and Hohenheim stared at the boy, analyzing the taunt jaw line Ed had developed when he at one time had such fat cheeks. Carefully Hohenheim brought his finger to the juncture of Edward's jaw beneath his ear and felt the soft angle made by the bone. "My son," he whispered. "How proud of you I am." He could feel Ed's heart beating and the tender pulse sparked a deep pain in his chest. Ed had no idea what he was asking when he asked to be sent home. Inside the toy store on top of a wooden locomotive Hohenheim had worked on the array he would use to send the boy back. It was a vicious hungry circle and it derived from the gate. There was nothing pleasant or merciful about it, and as he drew a long diameter to the top half it created a one way ticket. "You know not what you ask of me when you wish to leave," Hohenheim whispered, retracting his finger from Ed's skin and curling his hand into a fist when it shook. Edward's innocent pleading to go home felt like a cannon firing through his chest. _It took everything in one blow._

Ed lifted his severed shoulder sleepily when Hohenheim's finger drew back and tickled. In the shadow of Hohenheim's close body, Ed opened his eyes the tiniest crack and stared at the lamp until it came into focus. At first the room seemed dim, until the mountain at his side became a person, and Ed lifted a sleepy gaze and rasped out a small and simple, "What?" Ed cleared his throat to strengthen his voice. He had coughed until he was sure something would either come up or split open and bleed. "What old man." Hohenheim considered where to start. There were quite a few things he should fill Edward in on, but Ed took the lead. "Do we have to leave?"

"Do you need more sleep?"

Ed made a sour expression of disagreement and turned his mouth into an exaggerated frown. _How was it he didn't need more sleep considering._

"I'll be okay," Ed rasped, waving this off in a slow dramatic flop of his hand. "Don't worry over me." Hohenheim found Ed's bull-headed nature amusing and cracked a smile.

Graham entered holding his coffee cup and wearing a triumphant grin. "Feeling better are we?" Graham asked cheerfully

Ed gave his aching chest a rub. "No thanks to you."

"All thanks to me boy," Graham corrected. "All thanks to me." Graham gestured to Ed with his cup. "Get up now. Let me take a look at you on your feet."

Hohenheim left to fetch his coffee. He wanted Ed to have something warm to drink, and also, he needed to get the false arm back on.

The prosthetic arm lay on Graham's table curled around the frog in the jar. It sat as close to the false bicep as it could, its throat pulsing with each breath. Gingerly Hohenheim slid his finger over the new coined sized lump of raised plastic which patched the bullet hole. Although the look was not overly sophisticated, he felt confident the design would be flawless, and this meant all they needed to do was find a place to hold up. The idea of continuously subjecting Ed to winter travel, and dragging him in and out of hotels like a roaming vagabond was less than appealing to him. Ed needed a warm environment where he could haul up with some bed rest for the next few days. Hohenheim needed someplace private, so no one would notice what he was doing, and he needed someplace Ed could rest deeply. He would need Ed to be strong, very strong, or else it would not work.

Hohenheim squeezed his grip over the mended plastic, but it held.

Ed yelled loudly from Graham's study, and the sound of him pulled Hohenheim from his thoughts. It was a quick and indignant, "Hey!" before an angry "Crazy old man!" followed it. Hohenheim gathered the arm and coffee, and returned feeling like a referee.

In front of the settee Graham was holding the top of Ed's arm and shaking a finger in Ed's miserable face while speaking. "Now, you'll see here," Graham said, voice stern with an aged professionalism that kept his anger controlled. "I won't have such talk." Ed was sourly rubbing the top of his flesh hand into his hip as if trying to scrub it clean. "Say that word again my boy, and you'll get more than a slap on the hand." Ed yanked from Graham's hold with a few angry puffs of breath but wisely stayed quiet.

Hohenheim felt his appearance defuse the situation and Graham turned to him with mild irritation. "Hohenheim, you really should teach your son some proper German." Ed did not take well to being suddenly excluded from the conversation and fixed a dark glare on Graham. "His accent is atrocious, and I know he's much older than custom, but his vulgarity is near intolerable. Put a little soap on a dish rag and wash it out."

Ed was exercising restraint up until Graham suggested this, and then Ed lost it. Hohenheim saw Ed's focused look of anger tighten, as if with shock, before the match met coal oil, and Ed exploded.

"I've had about all I can take from you old man!" Ed yelled, taking a step toward Graham and cutting off Graham's next statement. "Bite me!" Hohenheim stepped between them at once. "I am a National State—"

"All right," Hohenheim said, interrupting and laying a hand on Ed's shoulder while keeping eye contact with Graham only. In Germany, Graham recognized only himself as the other adult in the room. Edward was a boy, and a misbehaving boy at that. Graham was unthreatened by Ed and comfortable with Hohenheim's involvement. He did not feel the rush of guilty defensiveness Ed did when Hohenheim separated him from Graham. Graham was certain and confident his decisions were as astute as ever. Ed was the one whose insecurities were swelling a sense of embarrassment. He knew he was letting his emotions get the better of him, and yelling was only proving the old man's point, but he couldn't help it!

Hohenheim pushed his coffee cup to Ed's chin and Ed took it looking clueless. "Edward have some coffee, it will be good for your throat," he said, keeping a pleasant tone. He wanted peace, and felt it unfair to impose Germany's standards on his Amestrian son. "And Graham, such a response can only be expected after beating your patients to the near point of death."

"A diagnosis." Graham sounded victorious.

Ed was sipping the coffee and muttered a miserable, "I'd call it a beating" into his cup. Graham ignored this.

"Do you need a car Hohenheim?" Graham asked, holding his pipe lazily and watching Ed drink. "Of course you're welcomed to stay if he needs to rest here." Ed snorted into the cup as if to say that was the last thing he would do.

"Yes, a car would be appreciated."

Graham left and Hohenheim turned to Ed with a heavy sigh. Ed was cupping the warm cup to his nose and mouth, but his eyes jumped up when he heard the tone of exasperation and felt what was possibly undeserving leniency in Hohenheim's patients.

Hohenheim understood how Amestris was different, and how German life was hard for Edward, but that did not mean his passive tolerance was approval, and Ed felt assaulted with the accusation he was the one out of line. Hohenheim expressed this politely, and mindful of Ed's age, by saying, "Edward, please."

Ed nearly dropped the cup, and his mouth fell open. A look of opinionated outraged appeared but Ed was gaping because he couldn't find his argument. _Was he supposed to be okay with this type of treatment here! Was Hohenheim on Germany's side!_ "That man just hit me with his cane!" Ed put his focus here and Hohenheim lifted a hand and pat weakly at the space between them to dismiss this.

"But you should be appreciative." Hohenheim reminded. "Consider the fact he provides us with medical help when I can not take you to a hospital. You have no German papers, and something the sort of a cancer in the middle of your chest. You'd be marked as a plague victim and we would find ourselves in a very great mess."

Ed's look of outrage receded to an unforgiving annoyance. "Well," Ed said sourly, finding it hard to surrender to German customs. "He hit _my knuckles_." Ed elaborated angrily. Hohenheim laughed. "It's_ not _funny. I can't believe I have to be subjected to such primitive treatment in this world. I never thought having the title and authority of a state alchemist would be so sorely missed." Ed emptied his lungs with exhaustion and wishful longing. "Even when I was younger, no one dared strike me. I had men much higher than me, and older than me, at my feet." Ed took another long sip of his coffee and Hohenheim considered these words.

"Humble yourself son." This was the best advice he could give. "Consider the world from the perspective of the smaller man and you'll never forget who you are." Ed lifted a curious gaze. "In turn you'll find yourself becoming the greater man."

Ed snickered. "That a speech?" Ed narrowed his gaze with sarcasm. "Who said it?"

Hohenheim straightened his expression and gave Ed a serious look. "Your father."

* * *

They took a car to the closest hotel, and arrived just approaching noon. Hohenheim left Graham's with the intention of securing lunch for them both considering how long it had been since they'd eaten but Ed was not interested. "We're going to bed when we get up there, right?" Ed asked, following Hohenheim up the hotel stairs. Ed had his hands deep in his coat pockets and was trudging forward with all intentions of going right to bed regardless of the answer. Hohenheim felt a little slighted he was becoming more inclined to simply turn in as well. Before they left Ed washed using the sink in Graham's lavatory. It was a quick and, as Ed described, a half-assed attempt at hygiene. Graham had been concerned with Ed's bruising and scuff marks, but Ed was not interested in being bandaged, he was only interested in leaving so he could go to bed. Now in the hotel, even food was not getting in the way. "Cause that's what I am doing." Hohenheim approached a hotel door and Ed leaned into the door frame and closed his eyes.

"Yes, I suppose rest will be fine." The alternative, eating and bathing, looked nearly impossible with Ed trying to sleep upright against the wall. "Tomorrow we'll have to do some planning so we should be well rested."

They had rented a less elaborate room with two beds. Ed went directly for the first one shimmying out of his coat. Hohenheim had reattached the prosthetic arm in Graham's study and Ed said the repair was flawless and noticed no change. No matter how silly it seemed that half a doll was now part of the elite joint-world automail he'd made, Hohenheim felt a bit of pride with Edward's praise. Edward was rather cynical with Germany and his praise did not come easily.

Ed was only half out of his coat when he tried to climb into bed. Hohenheim stopped this at once. "Edward," he called, sitting their suitcase on top of the small provided writing desk. Most of Ed's clothing was still soiled with dirt and blood. "Pajamas, please."

Ed groaned, and stepped back from the bed with the sour expression of a child losing dessert "Tell me honestly," Ed said, dropping his coat to the floor at his feet and unbuttoning his dress shirt. "From our world to this one…" Ed moved to his shoes. "…don't you think it's a bit dumb these people sleep in dresses?" Hohenheim broke into laugher and Ed smiled. He stripped as quickly as he could. His underwear was filthy and in shreds, and he grabbed the nightgown from their suitcase and pulled it over his head. "I want my clothes back," Ed complained from inside the tent of fabric where he was stripping out of his tattered undergarment. It dropped to Ed's ankles in rags, and Ed's head popped out the top of the nightgown before he fed in his arms. "I won't ever like wearing this." Ed slapped the nightgown down himself frowning.

"I suppose it's a matter of taste," Hohenheim said, taking his own nightgown out.

"Rather candyass if you ask me." Ed climbed into bed quickly and huddled down beneath the quilt. He let out a long happy sigh and snuggled into the pillow before cracking an eye toward Hohenheim. "I look like a pansy."

Hohenheim went to the second twin buttoning up the front of his nightgown and drew the curtains before climbing in. The gate made life more exhausting than it needed to be, and after everything that had happened within the last day he was more than willing to side with Edward's demands for noon day sleeping.

"Hohenheim?" Ed asked softly.

Hohenheim climbed into bed and pulled the covers to his shoulders. It felt good to let his earthly body relax. "…yes son?" He kept a mental presence waiting only for Ed's question so he could relax, but it didn't come. Instead a long silent pause bloomed and Hohenheim opened his eyes and looked over. Ed was visible only as a sliver of closed eyes between a fat pillow and thick quilt. Ed's bangs shrouded most of his left eye and his entire nose in thin blonde wisps. Hohenheim was certain Ed had fallen asleep, before Ed whispered one last soft word.

"Night."

* * *

Hohenheim slept until eleven that night at which time he left the bed, bathed, and ordered dinner. Ignoring Ed's protests Hohenheim forced Ed to do the same. Ed was in such a state of deep sleep Hohenheim pulled him half out of bed by his arm before Ed gained the motor control to continue and the sense to begin colorful arguing.

Hohenheim ordered lamb and onion, potatoes, string beans, and bread, and that equated to a small fortune. Ed was scrubbing furiously at his head in the tub, complaining continuously about not having been given a warning they would be crawling through dirt, before the smell of food took hold of him. Ed was back in his nightgown almost too fast to be humanly possible and attacked the plate that was his.

"Ed," Hohenheim said angrily, scooping Ed's wet hair off his shoulders and grabbing a towel. "Why didn't you dry your hair?" Ed was chewing with his mouth too full to even speak, and Hohenheim had the sneaking suspicion Ed didn't care about his complaints. He wrapped Ed's hair with a towel and held it tight to soak up the extra water. All about the shoulders of Ed's nightgown the dampness was bleeding Ed's skin color through the fabric. "You have to take better care of yourself Edward, Germany is still developing medically."

Ed was sitting cross legged on his bed with his dinner in his lap and swallowed heavily before tipping his head back to make eye contact. "I usually dry it with alchemy," Ed explained irritably. "So I am not good at this yet."

Hohenheim felt the dampness to Ed's arm. "And your body?"

"Alchemy."

"Edward."

Hohenheim reached over Ed's shoulder and took hold of the automail hand trying to stab a piece of lamb with a wobbling that should imply the lamb was scurrying all about the plate. Hohenheim closed his hand over Ed's and brought the fork down in a quick fierce stab. Ed startled and looked up. "If you want to go back," Hohenheim said softly. "And you want me to send you there, what must you do?" This question wasn't meant to be answered. Ed needed to acknowledge Germany, he needed to accept where he was and make himself stronger. "I can not send a sick, weak, and frustrated person back through that gate." This was the truth. "Do you understand?"

Ed looked down at his plate and considered how big Hohenheim seemed looming over him, and how accurate this statement was. Calling the gate while angry, and even worse, trying to cross it while in poor health, was suicidal. So much of Hohenheim's words made Ed want to be mad, but suddenly, and with some relief, it finally felt as if he couldn't. "I know," Ed said softly, giving an obedient nod. "It's hard." _It was anguishing. _"I am trying."

Hohenheim released Ed's hand and fork. "I know you are son." He gave the towel one last squeeze and drew it back. Ed's hair had broken into many strands clinging together with their moisture. "You're very strong." Ed smiled, and before he realized he'd done so, he hid it from Hohenheim. For Ed, after what Hohenheim did, having Hohenheim's praise mean anything was embarrassing, and embarrassing to himself. He didn't want it to mean anything, and he didn't want Hohenheim to know it meant something. _Had he forgotten what his mother had gone through?_ "And you're a very strong scientist. You need to remember to keep your wits about you. They are stronger than your emotions."

Ed closed his eyes when a memory of Izumi surfaced. She was standing in the grass of her backyard without shoes and her arms crossed over her chest. _I stopped doing laundry because I could hear you yelling from all the way inside Ed._ She had also told him his emotions were what he needed to keep still when he felt like he was exploding. _Just what do you think you're doing? _At the time Alphonse had transmuted a fountain because when they learned new things Alphonse was best at improvising and incorporating elements they'd already learned. On this day Alphonse's fountain tapped into the ground water so it could flow naturally. It creamed Ed's natural bird bath, which pulled in only enough ground water to fill. Alphonse had made a looping circuit, and Ed remembered becoming furious when Alphonse broke out laughing and then said, _Ha ha nii-san, look whose is better! _

They had been competing for the last two days and Alphonse had only managed to win a handful of times, but on this particular occasion the win was so big Ed remembered yelling at Alphonse for what he thought was a short period of time, in a voice that was not as loud as he later learned it was.

Izumi stood still with her arms crossed only long enough to make her single statement and ask her single question. Then she grabbed Ed by the hair and pulled him inside. Ed knew he probably would never forget this day because he was ten and old enough to feel very nervous Izumi was so mad, very sorry he'd made her so mad, and very embarrassed he was being punished. She sat him at the kitchen table and he was made to sit alone for half an hour so he could think about what he should have done with his anger. Ed remembered acting tough up until Izumi went to finish her laundry. Then he put his head down on the table and covered it with his arms. When she came back, twenty minutes later, she hugged him and told him every alchemist had a weakness they needed to remember to make strong. She said for him it would be his heart. _Use your mind before your heart Ed, or you'll end up breaking it._

After Ed had dinner he went back to bed and Hohenheim prepared himself for the following morning. He suggested they fix Ed's leg the way they had the arm, but Ed was too tired and said he had no weakened movement. Feeling tired as well Hohenheim also returned to be and slept from one to four. With the soft glow of the morning growing stronger the morning snow could be seen coming down in fat heavy flakes. It made the speed of the snow beautiful, so each snowflake appeared a dropping feather. Germany was peaceful, blanketed in white as if the streets and buildings were sleeping.

Hohenheim went to the window and opened the curtains letting a soft radiance into the room. Looking out he knew he was facing Germany, but sometimes it felt as if he were seeing all of Europe and none of it at the same time. Although the architecture and language changed with the geography, he imagined his displacement was much of what Ed felt. He was on one side of the glass and Europe was on the other. It was foreign, and it would never, no matter how long he looked at it, come inside.

Hohenheim was careful not to disturb Ed who had kicked his blankets half way down and had his flesh arm hanging off the bed. Ed was snoring lightly with his mouth hanging open in a deep sleep when Hohenheim dressed and cared for himself. That morning he planned to find a place for them to reside and he wanted to do so without Ed's relentless questions and cultural despise. With Ed temporarily spending so much time on sleep he felt confident he could do this without Ed even noticing. So he prepared himself to leave, put on his coat, corrected Ed's blankets and arm, and slipped out.

Any apartment would be suitable; his only preference was relative seclusion so neighbors would not become curious to strange noises or lights. He had to consider he'd never attempted any form of human transmutation while in Germany, because alchemy was so unresponsive on every other level. Without knowing what to expect he would plan for the worst.

The first and second apartment he viewed were both too cramped for the necessary means, and the third surrounded by two other inhabited floors of families. However, the forth was a small two story building at the end of a dull residential street renting the top floor. It was drastically over priced and respectably had been on the market for quite a while. The building's architecture allowed for a single bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and large rectangular parlor. The odd shape and location made it less than desirable for the average European unless there was something relatively large they needed to have with them which the parlor could house. This was the angle Hohenheim approached from. He explained he was looking for a place for his piano and rented the apartment right away. He considered the small cost insignificant to the purpose, and when he made his agreement it was becoming late afternoon. Somehow the morning had gotten away from him, and when he took a car back to the hotel it seemed ridiculously obvious now in hindsight that he should have left Ed with some type of note in case the boy woke up. The notion he could sneak out and this would be more peaceful for his son now looked idiotic and Hohenheim felt building guilt and regret as he climbed the hotel's stairs. All he could do was hope Ed kept sleeping.

He slid the room key into the lock as carefully as possible and opened the door only a few inches so as not to wake Ed if he were still dosing. Peeking in he looked at once to Ed's empty bed and felt a bit of alarm before noticing Ed sitting on his own before his open suitcase. With a wide eyed and startled expression Ed was watching the door sneak inward as if waiting for a Bram Stoker monster, or something awful Germany had cooked up, or the gate had vomited and sent after him, until Hohenheim poked his head in, and all of Ed's surprise and apprehension became rage.

Ed was holding a few sheets of paper above the suitcase and he slammed them down. "_Where the hell have you been!" _

Ed leapt to his feet and stood towering on the second twin bed in his nightgown. With Ed fully awake Hohenheim came in quickly and raised a hand for peace.

"_I should kick the shit out of you old man!_" Ed hopped off the bed and stomped to Hohenheim's side.

"I know," Hohenheim said apologetically. He closed the door behind him and raised his second hand in a sign of surrender. "You have every right to be upset Ed. I apologize, I should have left a note."

"_Apologize_." Ed scowled. "Here I am sitting on my thumb wondering if this is the day my father has walked out _again_ and I'll be left in this city, in this hotel, without a dollar to my name!" Ed threw an arm back in gesture of the room and window to Germany. "Do you know what that's like!" Ed demanded. "I have no idea where I am! I can't read this language, I can't talk to these people! Germany doesn't want me!" Ed slapped a hand down on his chest looking frantic. "So I wake up and you're over like a bad dream. Do you know? _Know what that's like!_" Hohenheim kept trying to speak but Ed was cutting him off. "Oh wait, that's right, you_ don't_," Ed said angrily, jabbing a rude point into Hohenheim's chest. Ed lowered his voice into a quiet snarl of hate. "You would have _no idea_ what that type of abandonment feels like."

Hohenheim closed his hand around Ed's pointing finger and held it. "You have my word," he said softly, locking his eyes with Edward's wild golden pair. Ed had inherited the color of his eyes, but the size and shape of them came from Trisha. He was never capable of emotion like her, and she had given Edward the same ability to scream them from his face without using a single word. "You have my word that I will never walk out on you Edward." Ed recoiled with a level of skepticism and fear to trust which stung Hohenheim. "I swear this to you," he said fiercely. "So all concerns regarding myself and your abandonment I put to rest today." He released Ed's finger and took hold of the boy's slender hand instead. "Understood?"

"You say that now," Ed spat, his brilliant eyes darting uneasily between Hohenheim's. "Then you find something _important_ and you leave for it and—"

"—_Nothing,_" Hohenheim said, raising his voice just enough to cut Edward off and silence him. "Nothing will ever be as important as making sure my son is taken care of." He meant this, and Edward silenced with the intimidating sincerity of his words. "Now I have left to secure us a place to work. I recognize I should have informed you in some way son, and for that I apologize, and I'll explain more when we arrive." He moved on to their next objective which was to leave, and lifted his gaze to the suitcase. Ed had opened it and began investigating. From where he stood he could see that most of his notes had been rifled through and his privacy felt violated. Hohenheim dropped his gaze to Ed's troubled expression. He felt Ed was being rude in doing this, but also understood he could not be mad at Ed for something he'd driven the boy to do. "Do you have questions for me then?" he asked. Ed also looked uncomfortable with having been caught snooping so thoroughly.

"I was trying to figure out where you went," Ed said defensively. "But now that you mention it." Ed lifted his left hand and Hohenheim looked at his own journal which Ed extended. Much of his belongings would be in German and the other European language he read which was English, but this was his own personal journal and he kept it in the Amestrian language. Ed had his ring finger fed into the middle and opened the book with a gentle bounce of his wrist. Across the spread page was the array Hohenheim was dreading Ed would discover. It was massive and more intricate than any other he had created. "What's this?" Ed asked, sounding nervous. He understood the magnitude of the circle when he looked at it, and it held the threat of a weapon with the coordinates of your home.

Hohenheim was silent. He didn't know where to start or how much to say. He had only made his last revisions to it recently, in a simple toy store between a golden haired porcelain doll and wooden duck.

"I've never seen anything like it," Ed said, and his tone changed from the humanist to the scientist and began a level of excited awe. "It's almost as intricate as what...we found there." Hohenheim took the book and closed it gently. "You drew that?"

"Yes." He wasn't going to lie, and he stepped around Ed and took the journal back to the suitcase.

"Can you teach me to do stuff like that Hohenheim?" Ed followed eagerly. Hohenheim returned the few notes Ed had placed on the bed back into the trunk and shook his head. Ed sputtered a sound of surprised insult. "Why not?"

"Man was not meant to tamper with life Edward. Unless you want to find yourself being punished as I am, you'll leave it be."

Ed silenced. Hohenheim's tone was gravely serious and Ed had some experience learning about the repercussions toying with deity powers caused. Still, it was something hard to ignore.

Ed shifted uncomfortably but kept a determined look. "Well…you must have designed it for a reason." Ed took a new approach and Hohenheim stopped packing with a sigh and a smile. _His son was too inquisitive for his own good. _"I am not stupid," Ed said defensively. "I can read it," Ed insisted, and Hohenheim felt certain Ed could not, although that did not mean Ed couldn't recognize the implications. "I understand the concept just..." Ed trailed off, and Hohenheim looked to the boy. Without speaking Ed was single handedly responding to his conclusions. "Just…" Ed said, sounding hesitant with worry. "…the contradiction inside it." Ed extended a hand for the journal wanting to see the circle again, but Hohenheim did not offer it. Ed lowered his hand looking a bit remorseful for having stolen into such a private item before continuing. "How can you give something life by...killing something else?" Ed asked, voice saddened and fragile the way Hohenheim was certain Ed would have been saddened when he learned what was inside the Philosopher's Stone giving it color. "What kind of method is that?"

"That method," Hohenheim lifted the journal and gave it a tiny shake, "is what I will use to send you back." That was all there was to it. Ed's eyes widened and his jaw dropped in absolute astonishment. "Now we should get going."

* * *

Thank you to everyone reading ~ I hope you enjoyed! We are now very close to the end. If you have not done so, and are interested, please vote on which story will be posted next in my profile poll. Results coming soon.

Chapter 17: Oneirology , will be posted 5/3/13

The box below is for your cherished comments: Please feed the writer, and leave a review.


	17. Oneirology

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Seventeen  
_Oneirology_

- mirage -

Ed went to the kitchen threshold, and called to Hohenheim who was packing the few dishes he'd bought into a top kitchen cabinet.

They had left the hotel earlier that morning stopped at a store Ed did not enter and assumed this empty four roomed space. Now with Ed using all limbs and adorned respectfully in a white dress shirt, open wool coat, and slacks, they were working on heating the place up and arranging what few belongings they had.

"There's a man here," Ed said dryly, hooking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the long rectangular parlor which held their front door. "He's asking for a ridiculous sum of money and about our piano."

Ed looked less than impressed with their situation and Hohenheim laughed. "That's our landlord." He had bought two plates, two cups, and two sets of silverware and although it made little sense he was putting them all into the same cabinet. _The dish cabinet. _"Pay him, and tell him the Piano is being shipped in from France."

"Pay him!" Ed exclaimed with shock. "Are you nuts!" Hohenheim pointed to his wallet. He had set it on the counter with the apartment key. "Just how much money do you have old man?" Ed snatched the wallet angrily and ripped it open.

"Don't worry yourself Edward," Hohenheim said kindly. From their single shopping bag he pulled out the few onions he'd purchased and the wrapped piece of pork. "I promise we'll be okay."

Ed was flipping through the marks in Hohenheim's wallet slowly and counting in soft whispers. He snorted with disapproval when he had enough and threw the wallet back to the counter before leaving to the front door.

Grumbling, Ed gave their landlord what he asked for with rude commentary and even ruder gestures once the man turned his back. Hohenheim watched this from the counter were he unwrapped the pork and took the single cooking knife he'd purchased from the bag. For being so young and, although still growing, rather small and sickly by German standards, Ed had the loud bark of a tiny dog. "Were you always so arrogant?" Hohenheim asked, when Ed stood in their open doorway watching the landlord recede like he wanted to mug the man. Ed looked back and slammed the front door. Hohenheim began a slow even cut on the slice of pork. "I don't remember you this arrogant as a boy."

Ed's mismatched footsteps were approaching and Ed leaned into the counter and tossed forward a single mark. "In fact I was." Irritably Ed was putting extra money back into the wallet, because counting money here was different then it was in Amestris. "It's my most charming attribute." Ed gave a toothy grin and tossed the wallet aside.

Hohenheim chuckled and stopped cutting. "Son," he lifted his eyes to Ed's grinning face, "you are a wise ass." Ed laughed, a happy adolescent giggle. Hohenheim indicated the open suitcase and Ed looked to it. "Would you bring some of that to the bedroom?"

Ed left with the extra blanket and their clothes and didn't return. Hohenheim did not find this concerning, he knew the place was new and Ed seemed to have a natural scientist's curiosity. However, after he'd taken the frying pan he'd purchased and set it on the stove, and chopped the remainder of the pork, he left to find the boy.

Ed was in the bedroom alongside the old queen sized bed with its straw mattress looking lumpy and uninviting with his ear to the wall.

Hohenheim's first instinct was to call Ed away from what he was doing, because the act itself looked rude, as if Ed were spying, but Ed's expression stopped him. It were as if Ed had discovered a transmutation circle, and pressed his face up against it. His eyes were lost in a clouded transfixed stare with his concentration somewhere else, and that was when Hohenheim began to hear the faint but unmistakable keys of a piano.

Quietly he approached Ed's side, and Ed glanced up from the wall before laying a finger to his lips. Hohenheim adjusted the knife to his left hand and leaned into the wall with his right. "What is it Ed?" he asked softly.

"Music," Ed whispered, closing his eyes as he listened. "I've never heard anything like it." The piano was playing in a slow captivating melody, and the composer was famous. Hohenheim had heard the song before, he had attended concerts upon arriving in Europe years ago because music here was very different from Amestris and the European people had composers they honored for centuries. In a way, this manner of keeping the past alive was comforting to him. He had seen his homes, customs, fashions, and ways of life disappear as Amestris progressed, but here, something tremendous stayed tremendous through the decades and each generation paid respect. "Hohenheim," Ed whispered, voice faint. "It's incredible."

Hohenheim smiled. "It is Beethoven." Ed opened his eyes and Hohenheim saw Ed's lips repeat the name with no sound. "He was a genius, a brilliant composer, and this is his eighth sonata." The piano was following Beethoven perfectly, the keys climbing rapidly without a single note missed. "Do you like it?" Hohenheim asked, feeling a swell of amusement and pleasure with Ed trying to get through the wall to better hear a composition written when he would have been near Ed's very age and still in his human state.

"I love it," Ed whispered. "It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard." Even through the plaster the swell of the allegro and its many notes came through perfectly. "Can I meet Beethoven? Does he live here in Germany?" Ed asked, sounding excited before falling silent when the music stopped. It paused deliberately, but Ed looked worried he'd disrupted it, before it began again, and controlled to finish the piece.

Hohenheim chuckled. "Son, I wish I could have met Beethoven." This was the truth. "But he died, almost a century ago." Ed was stunned. "He was a lucky man; he lived between two wondrous eras and his music helped join them. In this world he is famous on every continent." Ed was astonished with this fact. "We must live near a pianist, because this is not a piece the average person can play." As the song ended Hohenheim dropped his hand onto Ed's shoulder because he could feel Edward's desire to seek this person out. Ed wanted to hear more the same way a person sampling something delicious desires an entire piece. "That means they will be well known or soon will be. We should not meet them."

"I wasn't going to," Ed said, sounding sour and robbed.

Hohenheim offered the knife he was holding and Ed looked at it, clueless. "I need to go out and buy a water based black paint," Hohenheim informed. Ed took the knife slowly trying to hide his unease with the concept of Hohenheim '_going out'._ "It won't take long," Hohenheim said kindly. He returned to the kitchen with Ed following. "I'll come right back." He buttoned his coat and took his wallet from the counter with Ed holding the knife and standing before the plate of untouched onions. Ed looked nervous, and Hohenheim felt torn between verbally addressing it to have clarity between them, and ignoring it so as not to embarrass Ed. "Is that all right?" he asked, hoping this would transition both.

"Yeah," Ed said softly, before forcing a nod. Ed gestured to the onions with the knife. "Should I fry them?"

"That would be helpful." Ed abandoned all eye contact and moved the plate of onions farther away before rolling up his sleeves. He was done with their conversation. Hohenheim could feel it and felt proud he could recognize Ed's sign even if it wasn't such a nice one. Once more he checked he had his wallet, took the single key to the apartment and stepped to the door. "Half an hour," he clarified. Ed waved this away without a word, and Hohenheim smiled. Seeing Ed standing in better health within the kitchen preparing to cook was new to him, and the domestic setting made him happy. "I'll be right back," he reassured again.

He turned and left for the door, but the minute he did he felt Ed's gaze on his back and it hit as powerfully as a bag of sand. Every day he had placed between them felt heavy on his shoulders and he left the apartment and staggered for a moment. It was hard to explain to a child you were rotting and your body would fall apart if you didn't leave them. Somehow that didn't translate into love. Somehow it seemed as if he should have wanted death.

With his hand against the closed apartment door the way he felt his presence up against the portion of Edward locking him out, he felt Ed's eyes leave him and seconds later the knife swung down and split an onion.

* * *

The snow was coming down so hard their footsteps from earlier were entirely covered when Hohenheim left, and when he returned there was almost two feet of it on the stairs leading up to his front door. From the small corner hardware store he had purchased a pint of black paint, some soap, and black tea. The bag was light enough but still with the sky raining cotton balls it was hard to make it. He trudged through the front door stomping his wet muddy shoes into their bare hard wood floor. The apartment held no furniture outside of one abandoned wooden chair and the bed which was too large for the common person to move.

Hohenheim's slapped at his arms and shoulders to knock the snow free. Then he paused when the delicious aroma and the sound of sizzling food stole his attention. "Ed?" he called, continuing to dust himself as he walked to the kitchen and looked in.

Ed was standing at the stove scraping at the frying pan of food to keep it from sticking. The apartment was growing warmer and Ed had taken his coat off but kept his mitten on his flesh hand.

Hohenheim approached and sat his shopping bag on the counter. "Ed, this smells wonderful," he complimented. "I didn't know you had any culinary skills."

The frying pan was littered with perfect crescent onions and pork of that had been sliced again to be of the same length and width. "I don't." Ed left the pan and went to investigate the new shopping bag. "I am just good with a knife." Ed pulled out the tea and lifted the box to study the printed German language. "Don't go reading too much into some chopped onions and pork. It's not as if I made something, I more or less just hacked stuff into pieces." Hohenheim looked up from the pan with a humored smile, but it fell quickly on sight of Ed's expression.

Ed was trying to read the German tea and his look of concentration was amplified by his pink and tearful eyes. Even Ed's nose looked a bit red and Hohenheim felt himself stiffen.

He felt a swell of guilt and pity his departure, even for something as small as half an hour, caused Ed to either feel, or remember what it was like to feel, abandoned. The idea of him going no more than two blocks, and leaving Ed with a sorrow Ed remembered from a certain morning when he had walked out without a single goodbye was painful for him. Did the fact he said he would come back, and explained his errand mean nothing? Had what he done to Edward as a child been this severe? It appeared it was, and it felt like every year and every day of his absence sat upon his heart. _Look, look what he had done to his eldest son._

"Oh Ed," Hohenheim said softly.

Ed lowered the tea and cast an odd look towards Hohenheim with the grave tone. "What?" Ed asked dryly.

"Edward, I explained, I have no plans to leave you here alone. I will not abandon you." Ed narrowed his gaze with disgust.

"I know. I heard you."

"I understand you would not fare well in Germany without a guide while you're getting used to it. Please," Hohenheim stepped to Ed's side and Ed sat the tea down looking a bit disturbed, "try to understand when you were a child I did something I thought I had to do, and that is a mistake I will not repeat."

"Hohenheim," Ed snapped angrily. "What the hell are you talking about?" Ed glanced quickly about the room. "Is something wrong? What are you trying to say?" Ed responded to Hohenheim's illogical rambling with a bit of panic and Hohenheim cupped Ed's face in his left hand and lifted Ed's chin. "_What!_" Ed snapped, tolerating the grasp. "I made dinner and occupied myself. I am not some sort of candy-ass-sissy who can't do anything without one not-so-useful old man about!"

Ed's disposition and response to Hohenheim's attempt to be sentimental was in raging conflict with his pink rimmed eyes. Ed seemed more inclined to pitch a fit than to cry, and Hohenheim glanced thoughtfully towards the onions. "Is it the onions then?" he asked, stroking his thumb gently beneath Ed's eye.

Ed yanked his head away and slapped Hohenheim's hand from his body. "Yes, it's the onions!" Ed yelled, scrubbing his face with his arm. "You ass! You had me worried!" Ed yanked his arm down seething. "Don't think for a second if you ever walked out I'd be here weeping." Hohenheim felt relieved with Ed's expression of anger and gave a carefree chuckle. "_Oh yes_, it's _funny_," Ed hissed, storming from the room to the lavatory. "Everything I do is funny."

"Edward, I am sorry son. I don't mean to laugh at you," Hohenheim called, chuckling even as he spoke. It seemed somehow he had given birth to a fat headed arrogant boy who was capable of giving even someone like him a run for their money.

"We'll see how funny I am when I pop you in the mouth!" The sink water was running. "And what about this place, huh!" Ed came stomping back with his face freshly washed. "I mean, I am no home maker, but we don't even have a table and chairs."

"I only planned to be here for two days," Hohenheim explained. "So there's no need to acquire any long standing home goods."

Ed was shocked and stood staring with his mouth hanging open before his anger took hold. "We paid that man all those marks for two days!" Ed cried, throwing a wild gesture to the front door. "Are you out of your mind!" Ed grabbed at his forehead before dragging his hand down his face and Hohenheim watched. He understood that for Ed, who was accustomed to financial control but now found himself penniless and without any, that spending money generously, and at the rate they were, would cause alarm. "We-we…I need to know a little bit more about our money," Ed said, lifting a hand and rubbing his fingers together in a sign even Germany recognized. "This isn't working for me." Ed singled out a finger and wagged it about himself and Hohenheim smiled. Ed was in a state of mental frustration and he watched his son's rapid hand gestures, pointing finger, and fast talking mouth, and found it fantastic he could see himself from nearly a century ago. He remembered clearly dropping the stick he was herding sheep with and pummeling the other shepherd for making the smallest comment about the girl who milked the cows.

"Hohenheim, you're not listening to me!" Ed accused when Hohenheim took the knife and used it to flip their dinner while smiling to himself. He remembered being reckless when he was younger, and caring not that his body was susceptible to death. Now, Edward seemed the same. Germany had proven to be confusing and cruel. Edward had been sick since he arrived, and yet none of this seemed to faze the boy. Edward was a relentless juggernaut of his own momentum and if Hohenheim wasn't so sure his heart was in the right place, Ed would be a bit scary. "What are you laughing at old man?" Ed demanded, but Hohenheim was lost in his memory.

When Alphonse was three, and eating ice cream in the back lawn he had licked his cone so precariously it broke and dropped the ice cream into the dirt. Alphonse had looked shocked when this happened and inhaled a loud whine with his eyes rushing to tears. Ed, at the age of four, thrust his own cone into Alphonse's hand to stop this, and as quickly as Alphonse became upset, he was instantly pleased again. Alphonse dropped his empty cracked cone into the dirt, and took Ed's with both hands.

Ed selflessly aided Alphonse from birth, but often at a price. On that day, with Alphonse happily eating Ed's ice cream, Ed realized slowly, and in a child's fog of confusion, he no longer had any, and broke into tears. Trisha had watched the entire event from the kitchen, and laughing, went to the open back door and called to the boys. "_Edward, what happened?" _she asked, smiling lovingly. Ed pointed at Alphonse dirt covered ice cream and in one breath sobbed out, "_Alphonse dropped his ice cream and is eating mine cause I gave it to him and now I don't have any at all!"_

Trisha had laughed adoringly, but rather long and hard, at Ed's answer. Under the immunity only mothers seemed to own, Ed took no offense, and stood in the grass with his tears running down his cheeks waiting expectantly. When composed, Trisha called to him, and he came, crying and wiping at his face. She made him a new cone, hugged and kissed him, and sent him back out to the lawn. Alphonse barely noticed any of this and was blissfully covered in sticky vanilla ice cream.

Hohenheim's memories of Trisha and the boys were flawless, and he felt certain with Edward in a state of peace, Ed would astonish him with his own integrity and generosity.

"Hohenheim!" Ed slapped his hand down on the counter, and Hohenheim looked up. "I thought you said we were moving," Ed said angrily. "If you're only planning on us being here for two days, then where are we going?" Ed flung his hand outward in a wild gesture. "Since I am better now I expect to be included in these things. I am not a child."

"Of course not." Hohenheim retrieved two dishes from the dish cabinet. "And I will share everything you need to know with on the condition you let me have tonight to the rest of my thoughts." Ed narrowed his gaze with the dissatisfaction of one without an ultimatum. It wasn't really possible to force progression after all. Hohenheim recognized the look of accusatory unrest and tried to make light of it. "I am an old man and need my rest," he teased. He served a large helping of their meal onto a plate and offered it to Ed.

"Fine," Ed said, yanking the dish from him. The chopped meat toppled over the onions and slid into Ed's fingers. "But tomorrow I want some information."

"And I will tell you anything you want to know."

Ed backed up and sat down alongside the doorway looking angry. With a single grunt he raised his plate and began a manner of eating which was more an attack on the food than anything constructed.

Hohenheim kept his comments to himself.

* * *

Their apartment used steam heating and so each room contained a radiator. The size of the small one in the single bedroom should have provided plenty of heat, had it worked. Since it did not, this meant the bedroom would be unbearably cold. Ed was furious with this discovery and twisted the radiator knob with his automail until Hohenheim was certain it would break.

With their only option to sleep near a heat source, together they dragged the straw mattress from the bedroom to the parlor with Ed swearing colorfully. They both knew the large size of the parlor and small size of the parlor radiator would provide a weak heat source. It was not made for sleeping, and so was not designed as a closed space you could heat up. Ed was not happy about this and stood bashing their money hungry landlord and hugging his night gown to his shivering self as Hohenheim dressed the bed.

"Really he can't be considered a money-grubbing pig if we agreed to pay what he's asking," Hohenheim said. He put their pillows at the top of the mattress and tucked the sheet he'd laid over it down tight. "The insults would be better directed at us, don't you think?"

Ed was standing on his prosthetic leg with his flesh curled upward like a flamingo. "I wouldn't really say we." Ed wore a squinting look of agitation. "Since it wasn't a joint decision."

Hohenheim climbed into the bed and lifted the blankets. Ed scurried inside shivering and burrowed entirely into the bed.

Hohenheim laughed. "Ed relax," he teased, settling back himself. "Together we'll keep plenty warm."

Ed surfaced enough his face peeked out. "My head feels funny." Ed smacked at the blankets and pulled them closer to himself. "Do you think it was the pork?"

"I am feeling all right."

Ed rolled to the far edge of the mattress and snuggled downward. "Fine, night then."

Hohenheim tucked the quilt higher on Ed's shoulder, but Ed ignored him. With fragile confidence Hohenheim set his hand on Ed's head and pet it back with affection. "Good night Ed."

Hohenheim woke a few hours later with a sense of confusion. He was a heavy sleeper, and usually slept through the night indiscriminate of his environment. Long ago, after he left his human body, immortality made sleep easier. It was another part of function, where his routine superseded that of the worlds.

At Hohenheim's side Ed was sleeping restlessly and sweating. Curious, Hohenheim turned to the boy. Although Ed wasn't moving, his lips were twitching as if he wanted to speak and Hohenheim could see Ed's eyes dancing beneath the lids as he dreamed. Carefully he undid the first few buttons on Ed's nightgown and spread it. Even though Ed was too hot, he was too old to cuddle over bad dreams. Hohenheim would be forced to wait. If Ed wanted his comfort, he would be allowed, but if not, he was intruding.

Hohenheim settled back after the small adjustment and looked at Ed's sleeping self. He had not had another human inside the same bed as him since Trisha, and just the proximity of another pulse brought back memory of the few precious nights when he could roll over and it would be her along side him. Back then the air smelled sweet with summer wheat and blossoming weeds, and down the hall his sons slept in one bed wearing only underwear to the sound of Ed's snoring. Nightmares were few and far between. They consisted of imaginary things: monsters, pirates, and zombies. No one ever had bad dreams about real life, and when the boys did wake up crying Trisha would slip from bed and carry them in. Between her slender frame and Hohenheim's broad shoulders Alphonse and Edward would squeeze in and fall fast asleep.

Now it was so drastically different, so cold in comparison, that Trisha and Amestris world seemed hundreds of years and worlds away. Yet, here was Edward, but a mere decade growth in age.

Edward suddenly jerked with such intensity the boy's shoulder came back and hit Hohenheim. Ed spoke while sleeping as clearly as he did while awake, and muffled a quick, "Envy."

Hohenheim opened a slow saddened gaze to the ceiling. _He had left his sons with the sins. Knowing they were out there._ "Stop Envy," Ed demanded. Hohenheim swallowed the guilt that rose up like bile. "Christ I..." Ed whimpered turning his head to the side quickly. "He'll..."

Hohenheim couldn't take it anymore. He rolled to his side and propped to his elbow. _Things were getting a bit out of hand. _"Edward, you're just dreaming," he said softly.

"He'll..." Ed's voice cracked. "He'll eat him! No, that monster!" Ed bolted to life, and dead asleep was suddenly getting up. Hohenheim jerked back with surprise. He'd never seen such an action, but Ed was scrambling up as if to run a race. "That son of a bitch! He'll eat my brother!" Ed screamed.

Hohenheim reached forward and grabbed a fistful of nightgown about Ed's waist before he realized what he was doing. Ed was almost on his feet, tangled in the gown he wasn't used to and trying to get away. "Stop him! Dante, stop him!"

Hohenheim felt Dante's name come out and slap him. "Edward, wake up!" He looped an arm about Ed's waist and pulled Ed down until Ed collapsed to his rear.

Ed struggled against his hold. "No!" Ed reached forward and grabbed at the bare floor. "Stop her!" Hohenheim pulled, and Ed's fingers dragged down the bare floorboards like a cats claws. "He'll eat my baby brother!"

Hohenheim yanked Ed back into the bed, and the boy toppled into his chest rocking in his upright sitting position. "Edward!" Hohenheim shook Ed harshly. He couldn't stand the fear in Edward's voice. The absolute panic Ed was suffering, even if in his own mind, and he shook Ed hard enough Ed's head flopped uselessly on his shoulders. "Stop this, wake up!" What terrified him the most was the nauseating suggestion that Edward's dream was a memory, and the nightmare Ed was experiencing might have really happened. To know the sins and know she was controlling them while he was locked in Europe was awful. There was no true way to know the truth from Edward's mind spinning facts round and round. This could be a repressed memory or just a simple nightmare.

Ed became violent with the shaking. What was first floppy struggling broke out into bar room aggression. Ed threw a right hook, and began kicking in an attempt to break free. Hohenheim barely dodged Ed's fist, and the elbow Ed jerked back. "Edward!" Real anger was entering his voice. "Right now! Wake up!"

"Get off me!" Ed cried, returning to consciousness completely disoriented and still propelled by the overwhelming sensation to fight. "My father's dead!"

Hohenheim threw his arm about Ed's chest like a lasso and grabbed the boy so fiercely Ed went ramrod straight and stopped all movement with fear. "I _am _your father," Hohenheim said firmly, speaking to Ed's ear with the boy flush to his chest. "And if you don't stop this _right now, _you'll feel the back of my hand."

Ed ripped his hands up and covered his ears with a short whine of panic. Hohenheim was startled and loosened his grip. Ed had stopped trying to fight and was leaning forward slowly as if deflating. "Ed, are you all right?" he whispered. Ed's breathing was still excited and Hohenheim tried to look over the boy as much as he could but Ed was crouching into himself and shrinking into the nightgown as if melting. "Ed." Hohenheim pushed the blankets away from them with worry Ed might resume struggling but Ed didn't move. He hiccupped once and refilled his lungs in a loud gargling inhale before crying.

Immediately Hohenheim felt guilty for using such a harsh tone when Ed was probably not entirely aware of what he was doing. "Oh Ed," he whispered. He pet a hand through Ed's hair quickly. "Ed, are you awake?" he asked, ducking down to Ed's line of sight. "Look at me."

Ed lifted his crying face. "They were eating Alphonse," Ed sobbed, expression twisted up in pain. Ed began a quick unsettling rock with both hands still on either side of his head. "They were eating him!" Hohenheim didn't know what to make of this statement. "THEY WERE EATING HIM!" Ed screamed, becoming hysterical. "EATING HIM!"

"Ed, are you awake!" Hohenheim snapped, uncertain of what he needed to do. If Ed did not respond rationally he was contemplating dragging Ed to the lavatory and soaking his face and head until he came around.

"I saw them eating him!" Ed lifted a hand and wiped at his running nose, but Hohenheim pushed it aside and grabbed Ed's chin.

"Ed, answer me. Do you understand where you are? Do you need to stand up?"

Ed yanked his face free of the hold snarling with anger. "Aren't you listening to what I am saying!" Ed accused. "I was there! So was Dante, in that girl's body!" Ed lifted his hands and wiggled them downward in the universal sign for a female form. "Alphonse had become the philosopher's stone and to get it she was going to let Gluttony eat him!" Ed was horrified by this and left a pause of uncertainty. _What did this mean! What was he supposed to do? How could he stop this! _"Hohenheim!" Ed snatched the lapels of Hohenheim's gown with desperation, and Hohenheim was trying to find the best response. Ed's dream sounded a very plausible memory and this made things difficult.

Gently he raised a hand and laid it over Edwards. He could feel Ed's panic, and knew Ed was begging him for help.

He gave Ed all the comfort he could. "Edward, Gluttony did not eat your brother."

"_How do you know!_" Ed was frantic.

"If he had, Dante would have gotten the stone, and things would have changed yet again. She has not gotten the stone." This was the truth. He was at least sure of this much. "And if what you're saying is true, and Alphonse is the stone, that means either Alphonse, or you, or both of you, stopped her." Ed's eyes widened with disbelief.

"We stopped her?" Ed whispered in awe. Quickly Ed's eyes began a restless dart from side to side as he analyzed what he could remember. Watching Ed Hohenheim suddenly felt the gate move. Like a burp it sent a cold shiver down his spine and he knew it was hungry for his son who'd gotten away. _It could still taste the boy on its lips._

"What was that?" Ed whispered, looking up when he felt it too. "My chest throbbed for a second, like a pulse."

Hohenheim felt a headache coming on. "Edward," he said softly, laying back in the blankets and rubbing at his temples. Ed wiped his face on the sleeve of his nightgown and laid down as well. Ed was tired, and was breathing the slow labored breath of exhaustion. "We need to go one step at a time," Hohenheim said, turning to his side and tucking the quilt about them. "But…I think your memories are coming back."

* * *

The next morning Edward's eyes were fat and swollen and the boy was furious when Hohenheim changed plans yet again. With Edward's memories surfacing and such a violent end suggesting Ed might have crossed while in danger, Hohenheim did not want to send Ed back until he knew what was happening. "You have to understand," he said firmly, standing in the kitchen holding the tea kettle's handle and waiting for it to whistle. "If I send you back it destroys your possibility of ever winding up here again."

"You have to send me back!" Ed screamed, sitting in their bedding disheveled. "What if that's really happening to Alphonse!" Ed had been adamant he needed to leave since the moment he'd woken up.

"Edward, you've been here for weeks. If that was happening, then it's over." This was the obvious conclusion.

Ed rejected this idea. "_He might still need me!_"

"And if I send you back and you're killed that is the end of your life." Hohenheim gave Ed a stern look. _Scientists did not take such risks._

"That's a risk I am willing to take." Ed nodded with conviction, but the naïve arrogance of Edward's determination was insult to the alchemist the boy was, and Hohenheim slammed his hand to the counter in anger. _He could not have a conversation with Ed if Ed was going to give him childish answers void of logic._

Ed flinched with the uncharacteristic aggression and regarded Hohenheim with a look of caution the man recognized from years ago. Ed looked like the nervous little boy who did not want to get sent to Trisha's stool.

"I will not help end your life!" Hohenheim said angrily. "You are my son!" Ed scrambled up to stand in the bedding with as stern an expression as he could manage under the intimidation. Angrily he balled his hands into fists and tried to collect his thoughts into an argument.

"It's not your right to make that decision!" Ed yelled, smacking a hand down on his chest. "I am old enough to make it for myself! And I want to go back!"

"I will not send you back into danger until I know more about the situation."

"We're not going to know more because I can't remember it!" Ed tossed his hands in outrage. "What do you suggest we do then!" Ed's words were laced with sarcasm. "_NOTHING!_"

"I am not talking to you if you're going to scream," Hohenheim said, forcing himself to a calm tone. He returned his attention to the stove. He took the kettle from the heat before it whistled and Ed sputtered a choked sound of frustration he was suddenly ignored.

"I'll!" Ed managed. "I'll do what I want!"

"So be it," Hohenheim said, leaving the kettle for a cup. "But I am not talking to you until you're calm. Irrational emotions cause men to think irrationally."

Ed came stomping to his side. "It's not irrational when I saw my brother being eaten," Ed sneered. "He's your son too, or don't you remember that!" Hohenheim ignored Ed and filled a small tea cup with hot water. Ed was furious and slapped it off the counter with his prosthetic hand. "Don't you understand this world and everything in it means nothing to me!" Hohenheim looked at the shattered cup on the tile before lifting his gaze to Ed's outraged face. "I need to get back! My life is back there! I am not supposed to be here! And I won't sit back and do nothing while he's in trouble!" Ed lifted his flesh hand and pointed at Hohenheim aggressively. "Now you're my father, and you're supposed to help me! You're the only person who can! You're the only person who knows what I am talking about!" Hohenheim set the tea kettle aside and turned to face Ed. He gave the boy his full attention because even with Ed at this age it seemed the boy was having a temper tantrum. Ed was spiraling out of control and letting his emotions run his mind. If it took allowing Ed to get this off his chest for them to address the problem logically Hohenheim decided he'd endure it. "I can't let her get the stone! And I can't leave Alphonse on his own when he needs me!" Ed lowered his voice into a vicious snarl. "If I get back there and find out Alphonse died while I was sitting around here doing nothing, I swear I'll use every inch of myself, and my life, to find you and kill you."

That was the last straw for Hohenheim. He took a step forward, depleting the space between them, and Ed immediately silenced and took one back.

"Go." Hohenheim indicated the hall entrance way, but Ed defiantly ignored this. "Edward, go. Go and occupy yourself doing something. I am not going to listen to you this way." He stepped around Ed, who was determined not to budge, and walked away. Ed whirled around in shock he was being disregarded. "I would never deliberately put you or Alphonse in harm and you know that," Hohenheim scolded, leaving to the hall himself. "Your brother would be ashamed of you if he could hear you now." Ed looked slugged by these words and his lip trembled.

"How would you know!" Ed screamed, following Hohenheim with pestering tenacity. "You don't even know him! You left when he was an infant!" Ed followed Hohenheim to the lavatory and stopped in the doorway when Hohenheim turned on the sink and wet his hands. "I am his father now!" Ed yelled. These words escaped Ed's mouth before he realized he was going to speak them, and immediately afterward Ed swallowed with a bit of shock and locked his jaw.

Hohenheim looked up quickly with surprise. He had just begun to wash his face and had splashed up a single handful of water before Ed's words stole all of his attention. Ed looked guilty, and a bit nervous with this confession, but his anger had not dissipated.

"So," Hohenheim said softly. _Yes, he understood. _"You were his father then." He understood in leaving he put Edward in that position and part of the boy would in turn become a husband and a father. That as the eldest he would struggle into a role too big for him to fill and try to quell the pain of those he loved. "And so you would risk yourself to get back and help him?"

"Yes, yes I would." Ed began nodding.

"You'd do what you could to keep him out of danger?"

"Anything."

"Even if he didn't understand or didn't agree?"

"Absolutely." Ed confirmed. "Alphonse doesn't always know what's best for him."

"All right then," Hohenheim said with satisfaction. "Then you understand why I am doing what I am doing now." He returned to the sink and washed his face with Ed's jaw on the floor. Frantically Ed was trying to figure out how he'd talked himself into a trap and was grasping at straws trying to denounce Hohenheim's convictions. He wanted to argue but all he managed were a few sputtering noises.

"But…" Ed finally dealt a word. "But this is different."

Hohenheim dried his face. "No it isn't." He offered Ed the towel. "It appears you and I are in the same position." Ed took it looking crushed. "And as we're both fathers," he teased, giving a pause for dramatics. Ed swallowed uncomfortably. "Then we can both understand why we need to protect those we love." He dropped a hand onto Ed's shoulder and smiled. "Now wash up."

* * *

What was planned to be a simple two days blossomed into a week as Edward's nightmares became progressively worse. Every night Ed fell asleep fearful of the outcome only to become hysterical reliving the same event with only more unraveling. Hohenheim learned there were more people in the room with Ed when Alphonse was being eaten. He learned Ed had in fact found and lived out some of his last hours in Amestris's underground city. Before the end Envy was there, and he used the identities of people Ed knew to torture him. Ed said Envy became a lieutenant colonel who had befriended him, an old doctor he had tried to protect, and his mother. To Hohenheim's knowledge, Envy had never seen Trisha, and he could only imagine how disturbing this must have been for Ed. As it seemed Envy's impersonation of her upset Ed the most. For over an hour Ed sat swearing and angrily expressing the audacity of using her that way, the atrocity of mimicking her, and then how she said she remembered them. Ed said the homunculus Trisha had admitted remembering in a distant way being a mother. This broke Ed to tears and for a long time he was distraught over water which evaporated into the air.

Hohenheim couldn't make sense of Ed's fragmented memories, or many of the broken statements Ed was making, but he lay at Ed's side and stroked Ed's shoulders and back. After three nights it became the same. Every time Ed would become animated trying to relive the movements of his body in his sleep before raising his fist to strike someone and stopping. Always he stopped fist ready, white knuckles, lungs full of breath, before it would all suddenly end.

Edward's inability to sleep was taking its toll on the boy during the day. Hohenheim purchased a small table with two chairs, and higher grade mattress for them as their stay had extended. With the night terrors Edward had bags under his eyes and was losing color in his skin. This worried Hohenheim and he suggested they purchase something to medically induce sleep so that Ed might get some rest. Ed's immune system and body became much more susceptible to disease and injury in this state, and with the cold weather and drafty apartment he made sure Ed was always bundled.

Ed was against the idea of medication. He was anxious for the story to unfold so he could have the answers he needed and the entire ordeal could end. However after another three nights of the raised fist climax, Hohenheim slipped some powered formula into Ed's mash potatoes and Ed was out before dinner was over.

That night Ed slept fifteen hours, woke in a groggy state, and starving ate three plates of food before yelling. Ed was not happy he was drugged. While chewing he continuously reiterated how he considered this act _back-stabbing-bullshit_. Hohenheim tried not to smile when he apologized, but Ed was miserably exhausted and didn't seem capable of maintaining a cheery attitude all things considered.

After Ed had eaten his fill they talked seriously and were both left on the same precipice. The most logical scientific conclusion was that Edward's dream either stopped at the moment where he was sucked into the gate, or Ed blocked the next development from his memory. While Ed didn't come to the natural conclusion he would only block memories which were absolutely harrowing for him, Hohenheim did immediately. The concept his son could have been struck in the chest at this point, causing a wound which would have carried to this world, was his first thought. He did not share this. Whatever had happened to Ed was so traumatic even with the threat of Alphonse's well being and his own escape dependent on its recovery, Ed could not remember.

This left Ed depressed. They could only speculate using the knowledge they had, and Hohenheim felt Ed's mind tormenting them both. Ed was struggling to reclaim what was forbidding him from leaving this world and finding freedom. With their analysis Ed accepted the fact his dreams would stop in the famous climax, and immediately his appetite and spirit left him. Ed was no longer interested in Germany or his own self, and dipped into what Hohenheim considered a comatose means of existence that frightened him.

After five days of this it was nearly unbearable for him. Ed ceased to have any opinions, and was a soulless being haunting their apartment. The stark expression of suffering this change represented to Hohenheim ate at him, and on the night of the fifth day he propped himself to his elbow while in bed and looked down at his son. Ed was not asleep, and even with the dark night hiding Ed's dull stare, he knew Ed's eyes were open. "Ed?" he whispered, crafting what he wanted to say carefully.

"…what."

"You can't continue like this." Ed didn't say anything. Living in Germany without a means to return home Ed was dying like a flower without water, and Hohenheim found it was breaking his heart. Affectionately he pet his hand into Ed's hair and brushed the boy's bangs backward. "Can you talk to me son?" Ed's bangs slipped through his fingers and felt like tassel threads. "I want to help you."

Ed was silent for a long while after this statement, and then he said, in a flat quiet tone, "It feels like I want to die."

Hohenheim had come to fear Ed's thoughts were growing morbid, and he had the sneaking suspicious that Ed was entertaining the idea that if Alphonse didn't make it, in essence he could return to the boy if he didn't make it either. "Ed I want to help you," Hohenheim said, struggling to keep his voice as calm as it sounded.

"You can't," Ed said bitterly. "I can't live here Hohenheim. I can't be here." Ed was sad. "Your world is killing me."

Hohenheim's grip in Ed's hair tightened, and with the closure of his fist he realized that to save his son he was going to have to let him go, and so made a deal. On one condition, for three nights Ed was to receive medically induced sleep, and then on the fourth day he would send the boy back.

Ed immediately agreed looking at first skeptical this could be done, then betrayed this action was delayed, but finally eager acceptance and excitement took over. Ed was reanimated with the concept of home, and talked of nothing else until it came time to medicate himself. Then Ed resisted again.

"Ed, it's not negotiable," Hohenheim said firmly. He dumped a spoonful of the white powder he'd purchased from Graham into Ed's tea and brought it to the boy.

Ed was sitting in their bed wearing his nightgown and a look of disgust. "I promise I will sleep the night through," Ed argued. "You can watch me!"

"I am not discussing alternatives." Hohenheim offered the tea cup, and for three nights Ed drank it and while swearing at Hohenheim it activated. Ed would pass out abruptly and his angry expression would suddenly dissolve to one of peace, making Hohenheim laugh.

On the fourth day Ed had plenty of rest and was up and moving around the way he hadn't in almost two weeks.

They began directly after breakfast.

"I will send you back in the parlor," Hohenheim said. Ed carried the breakfast dishes to the sink and began washing them. "I am going to paint the array into the floor to delete any margin of error which could arise given the circumstance. This eliminates the possibility we might accidentally erase part, or change part while moving on it."

Ed looked up from the sink. "Why would we be moving around on the array?"

"You're aware Alchemy does not work here Edward." Hohenheim lifted his tea cup slowly to hide the shake in his hands. "This is by all means, a scientific last resort." He was petrified, and he took a sip with the cup trembling. Ed was not blind and watched this happen with a look of unease before lifting his gaze to Hohenheim's. "If it fails...you will no longer be able to stay in this world." He took great care to set the cup down carefully so it would not rattle against the saucer but the shake in his hand caused some fast tapping.

"Why?" Ed asked quietly.

Hohenheim swallowed. He did not mentally entertain the alternative to Edward's unsuccessful reintroduction to Amestris. _He couldn't._

"Because you'll die," he said, and the fact he looked more afraid speaking this confession than Edward did hearing it was humorous. Ed's expression tightened with brave acceptance and gave a slow nod before returning to the dishes. _Hohenheim felt nauseous._ "Will it be easier to know what will happen to you ahead of time, or do you want... to wait?"

Ed had both hands in the water and the prosthetic could not manage a wet grip and kept slipping off the china. As a result Ed kept dipping it in deeper to catch items and had bubbles clinging up his arm to his elbow. "Let me think on it," Ed said softly.

Hohenheim brought his tea cup to the sink. "I can finish this." Ed sat the dishes down and began drying his hands. "What you need to do now is go to the lavatory and take a bath." Ed gave a nod. "Wash your hair and every inch of you, than put your nightgown on and nothing else."

"Nothing else?"

"I will at least tell you this much Edward." Hohenheim smiled laying a hand on Ed's shoulder. "You'll need to feign modesty with me one more time. You see, I am afraid for this to work you'll need to be entirely bare."

Ed looked unimpressed. "_Great,_" Ed said sarcastically.

* * *

Curtain falls on Chapter 17.

…and here we are, with only one chapter left. The finale, Chapter 18: _My Absolute_, will be posted 5/10/13. I hope you'll honor me with a read.

To anyone wishing to vote on the next story, I will close voting 05/09/13, and announce the results, and calendar game plan for my next story with Chapter 18. Right now "Foolish For You" is leading by one vote, but it has been neck-in-neck with "The Big Bang Theory" for quite a while. I think both stories will be pleasurable reads for you, so please cast a vote if you have not done so if you have a favorite to win.

For tonight, take 3 seconds from your life, and do me a small favor.

Three seconds is how long it takes to write one sentence in response to what you read today. A "Good job," or "Bad job," whatever you wish to say. I promise you, it took much longer than 3 seconds for me to write this chapter, and much more than 3 seconds to write this story for you…but 3 of your seconds is all I ask. : )

See you next week.

**Reviews are loved.**


	18. My Absolute

The Silent Heart  
Chapter Eighteen  
_My Absolute_

- mirage -

Hohenheim removed everything from the parlor so the long rectangular room looked gutted and abandoned. This cluttered the kitchen and Ed seemed confused with all the moving furniture, so Hohenheim told the boy to leave to his bath and relax. He swept the parlor three times, mopped twice, and then checked on Ed only to find him in a state of peace with either arm propped along the back of the tub, a rag on his face, and steam rising upward from his bath. He was pleased Ed could rest and would miss the preparations this array demanded. On hands and knees he crawled about the floor checking between the planks of wood for anything of substance trapped or wedged between them. This would be one of the greatest transmutations of his life and it had to go off without a hitch.

With him obsessing over the wood along the front door, which he felt overly paranoid would carry something in from the street even if just pebbles, Ed appeared in the doorway. "So it's come to this," Ed teased, resting his hands on his hips wearing only his nightgown. "You look senile."

Hohenheim looked up and left the section of floor he'd checked six times over. He smiled with Ed's off color humor and took to the can of paint he'd set in the middle of the room. It would take him a considerable amount of time to make the array, so there wasn't any to waste.

"You don't need to sketch it first?" Ed asked, watching the first stroke of paint glide across the floor like a bleeding pen.

"I don't."

"Can you wash it up if you make a mistake?" Ed sounded worried and Hohenheim smiled.

"I won't make any," he said confidently, and this was the truth. As a father painting the array which would murder his son, there was as little room for error as there was distraction. With all his mental power he doubted he could hide the image and fear this array caused from his mind, and thus painting it would be the easy part.

"How long will this take?"

Hohenheim was painting each line with three coats, and Ed's questions caused him to sigh down to his work. It seemed Ed was also impatient with death. "An hour or two." He looked up. Ed seemed a bit uncomfortable standing in what he referred to as his dress and the eye contact made him blush. "I apologize Ed." Hohenheim laughed warmly. "I think I overestimated myself and miscalculated. If you want to add more layers please feel free." Ed looked irritated hearing this. "I used to move much faster and I am afraid it's been awhile since I've actually made an array with the intent of using it." This was the truth. "Or of this magnitude." Ed gave this a snort and left. "Bring a small towel when you return!" Hohenheim called, returning to his work.

Ed dressed entirely and returned to the parlor half an hour later carrying a small towel. By this time the floor appeared to have bad water damage spreading across it. The black paint looked like mold and rotten wood unless you stood close enough to make sense of the lines. Ed did so, immediately coming with interest when the inner and outer circle were crafted and the detail was being added. "Where did you read about this?" Ed asked, voice stricken with awe. "I've never seen it." The curves of the array were impressive to say the least, the manner of intersection astounding.

"And you won't ever again," Hohenheim said, dipping his paintbrush quickly into the can. He dropped the bristles to the floor and drew carefully letting the line bleed outward only enough to keep its intended width. "I made it," he explained. Ed was silent with respect. "I won't tell you how it's made because it's an evil symbol Edward. It's dangerous and even now if it weren't for my doubt you could assimilate and survive with mental health without your brother I would not attempt it." He stopped painting and looked up. Ed was staring at him with a look of intent contemplation. "Not knowing if I've succeeded when I feed you in I've accepted as my punishment for leaving your mother without explaining why." He stood and cracked his back. "I never wanted any of you to know. You understand something as trivial as human desertion seems picturesque in comparison to all of this madness." He gave Ed a weak smile. "Instead it made you question my love for you, and caused this bitter hatred of me I never wanted."

Ed struggled with his sincerity and forced a barely visible attempt at a crooked smile. "You're redeeming yourself slowly," Ed said, before returning his gaze to the array. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"Rest," he said firmly. "Rest because you're going to need all of your strength." Ed looked unnerved with this recommendation but silently obeyed and sat down against the wall. "And don't eat or drink further. I don't want you puking on me."

"Ha ha," Ed said dryly, pulling his legs up and resting on his knees. "Get working old man, clock's ticking."

* * *

Two hours later Hohenheim dropped his brush into the small paint can for the last time. This was the third time he felt the array was complete, and so Ed remained vigilant but unmoving when he stood up and scrutinized it carefully. He felt desperate there couldn't be the slightest error, and when he double and triple checked he walked to Ed's side and sat down with a heavy sigh. Age was not graceful and his flesh body felt an ache from keeling hunched over on the bare wood.

"So," Ed said softly, staring at the array. Parts were so incredibly intricate barely any of the wood's natural color was present and in many respects it looked like massive portions of the floor had been stained black. The symbolism was appropriate, and it was depressing. Hohenheim didn't feel he had it in him to return Ed's conversation and much of him had come to feel numb as if he had reached a form of mental clarity during a fast moment. The array on the floor seemed like an open blade hurdling at them and he could see the knife clearly coming when in reality the speed of the assault should make that impossible.

Ed elbowed Hohenheim in the side and forced a smile. "Should I _strip_ now?" Ed teased.

Hohenheim managed a fragile smile. "Why not say undress. Strip does not sound quite right for us."

Ed gave his eyebrows a playful bounce. "If that does it for you." Ed moved to stand, bracing a palm on the floor along side him and shifting his weight into his legs, when suddenly Hohenheim felt a panic hit him like cold water. In the second Ed moved to leave his side, he realized this was the beginning of the events which would forever take Ed from him and possibly to Ed's grave by his own hand. Acting with blind desperation he grabbed the front of Ed's shirt and yanked Ed into his arms. Ed came easily with his meager weight, but was hard as a rock and startled into silence with the attack.

Ed sputtered a barely audible choke when Hohenheim squeezed fiercely and forced almost the entirety of Edward's breath from his lungs. "Are you okay!" Ed cried, wiggling to gain some control in the grasp. He was crushed to Hohenheim's chest with his head on the man's shoulder and Hohenheim's own pressed tightly into his neck and over his ear. "Are you having a heart attack!" Ed lifted his hands and grabbed Hohenheim's shoulders, but the grip was painful. On one shoulder Hohenheim felt the cold and dull fingers of the prosthetic hand, and on the other the small flesh hand of his child. The false limbs felt like a blow he'd personally dealt, something Edward was able to manage because there was no one there looking after the boy.

"When you get old you realize science cannot fill the void religion does," Hohenheim whispered. "And you're left with this abyss of questions your youth disregarded as preposterous naive fiction followed only by those who failed to see the absolutes." He tightened his grip until he felt anything further would cause injury, but my god, it felt no matter how tight the embrace Edward was still not safe. "Now who should I ask for help? Help me, help me to save my son. Socrates? Aristotle? Galileo? Darwin? I don't feel the names of the dead will really aid me Edward, but they're the only names I know. I have forsaken the comfort of the unknown and the peace of unscientific irrational belief without the slightest in proof." He moved his mouth to Ed's ear. "Do not become a fool like me."

Ed was overcome with sudden alarm and confusion and began shaking gently. "What?" Ed choked, unsuccessfully trying to lean back for eye contact. "You've done great things!" Ed rejected the concept devotion to science meant nothing when in the end you felt alone and helpless. Even if Edward felt abandoned, rejected, and unworthy of Hohenheim's attention, and was albeit subconsciously determined to make himself worthy and change the equation so it was he who was rejecting his father instead of a man rejecting a boy who couldn't swallow that idea without breaking into tears, Edward bat this sudden confession of morbid despair aside the way one might demand their opponent stand up for the final blow. "You-you have done great things," Ed choked. "Don't call yourself a fool, you've dedicated your life to science, and even though you've done it differently than I would have you…" Ed silenced when Hohenheim's grip tightened with humility and gratitude. "Seriously don't have a heart attack on me," Ed teased shakily, sounding more frightened than humored.

"Edward I just want you to know I am sorry," he whispered. "I know I am frightening you now and I apologize, but if you could just let me hold you for a moment." The thought of giving the boy up made him physically ill. "Even if I succeed this will be the last opportunity I ever have to hold you in this body and in this life." He stroked his hand into Ed's hair, and so clean it was soft well into the roots. Like he did to his wife before they were married he turned his face into it and inhaled the smell Trisha had made and Edward had independently continued. It was the smell of Edward's life and soul radiating out through everything physical in this world. It was trapped in his clothes, in his hair, on his skin, and it was the smell of his son. He was greedy, and held Edward the way he wanted to, the way he wished he was able to throughout the years.

_Can I save the bee, if I give it back its stinger?_

He had missed the opportunity of his children growing taller, speech growing clearer, opinions forming, and to stand audience to a life blossoming into existence was the price he paid for being allowed one so long at the sacrifice of others. For his extended preservation he was deprived one of the most human functions granted to every human: the ability to be and love as a father to his own children.

Edward tolerated this for much longer than Hohenheim could have anticipated, and it came to a point where even he had to face the truth. He could sit and hold the boy until the end of time to satisfy his own insatiable need to know Ed was safe and warm.

"All right," Hohenheim said softly, keeping his tears at bay.

Ed sat back looking nervous and unsure of this overly parental side of Hohenheim. It was a side Ed did not recognize and could not relate to, and Hohenheim realized slowly, that although Ed could not bridge this concept, without any obligation, Ed still tolerated these small moments of fatherhood. As a smaller version of Ed had at one time, long ago, held a wishful boyhood fantasy for a father, and so understood what it might be like to wish for a son.

"You're all right then?" Ed asked, sounding unsure.

"Yes." Hohenheim tried to place as much reassurance in his tone as possible. He cleared his throat firmly with a nod and Ed was appeased. Ed stood quickly rolling his shoulder and moving on to the next moment with a strength Hohenheim imagined Edward used to move from losing, regenerating, and then losing his mother again.

"Okay," Ed said firmly, nodding a few times to settle their discussion. "Let's get this freak show going."

Ed unbuttoned the top of his shirt before untucking it from his pants with a quick upward yank. Hohenheim stood slowly, recovering at a much slower pace, but determinate to remain a foundation until the end.

Ed stripped his shirt off and handed it over before unzipping his fly. Hohenheim gestured to the kitchen. "Ed, please undress in the other room." Ed didn't stop; he simply began walking to the kitchen while undoing his pants. "And slow down please, I want you to keep your pants on for a moment." He went to the paint can and carried it to the kitchen with Ed's becoming annoyed.

"Hohenheim," Ed said irritably. "We have a communication problem old man." Ed had abandoned unfastening his pants and was unbuttoning the front of his underwear. "I feel the problem is mainly on your side."

Hohenheim set Ed's shirt on the counter and dabbed the brush into the can so he could paint. Ed watched with a growing look of confusion as he stripped his underwear to his waist. "What's this?" Ed asked, beginning to shiver. "Are you painting me too?"

"Stay still," Hohenheim warned, placing a hand on Ed's shoulder to steady him while lowering the brush to Ed's chest.

"You don't have to if it's not necessary. I am ready, my mojo is going."

Hohenheim was just about to place the first stroke when Edward's statement stopped him. He looked up, but Ed's expression was a focused look of unwavering determination. "Your what?" he asked.

"My…" Ed trailed off at a bit of a loss. "You know, my mojo. It means I am pumped, I am ready to roll, I am all juiced up, wired, engines firing, get it?"

Hohenheim felt blindsided by the language his son had acquired. "Edward, where did you hear these expressions?"

"Around," Ed said sourly, before indicating his chest. "Don't get side tracked now. I don't take my shirt off for just anyone." Ed offered a wide smile, and Hohenheim lowered the brush and painted a large circle like a bullseye on Ed's chest. "How much do you need to put on me?"

"A circle here on your chest." Hohenheim painted carefully so the lines would not be altered by Edward's undulating human structure. "And the same pattern again on your back."

"The same?" Ed watched the paintbrush with interest. "Why?"

Hohenheim sighed. He considered explaining it. It would expose the rational he was using three arrays so that Edward's palpable form would be caught in the middle and the transmutation would not have the choice of rejecting him. If it wanted to activate, and Hohenheim was certain it did, it would have to do so by consenting to the demands he had written. This was a theory and concept that had come to him with age and to his knowledge the alchemy world had not discovered this principle yet. This meant he would be divulging an alchemic variable to Edward which would never be needed within safe transmutations, and therefore, something he'd rather keep from the boy. Also, by explaining this, Edward would realize that the circles were not connected, and would inquire as to how he was going to simultaneously manually activate all three when there was only one of him. This would beg the haunting explanation that he had no intention of activating the others himself, and that with the first and second layer painted on Ed, it would be Ed's blood and life which was going to activate them. By sandwiching Edward's body into the transmutation circle, the alchemist which existed within his son, like an electrical charge, was going to fire rapidly when Edward's systems began failing. Edward's possession of alchemy and will to return to Alphonse was going to collide into a chemical and alchemic reaction that would fire off the remaining circles as soon as Edward was capable in order to maintain self preservation.

Hohenheim found himself unable to speak of what he was about to do, and with Edward watching him in patient wait for an answer he changed topics gracefully. "What will you do when you get back Edward?" Ed was not fooled, he didn't protest.

"Go see Alphonse." Ed's response was immediate. "Make sure he's okay." Ed's tone was relieved with just the thought of reuniting. "Make sure someone killed that bitch Dante. Make sure someone killed the homunculus." Ed was creating a list of work and Hohenheim chuckled. "Check on my teacher, she's been ill." Hohenheim left Ed's chest and moved to Ed's back.

Ed pulled his hair up into a pony tail and for a moment Hohenheim watched Ed's shoulder blades shift in a human form of plate tectonics until Ed replaced his arms. "Then once I do all that I'll go make sure I am still employed with the military. If I am okay, if I am not, that's fine too. I don't need it anymore." Hohenheim dragged the brush up the middle of Ed's spine and Ed's arm twitched with the tickle.

"Sorry."

"Personally, I hope I am not. That way Alphonse and I can break away from all that and just take it easy for a while." Ed's demeanor was relaxing with thoughts of home and the rolling hills of Rizembool, and Hohenheim could visually see Ed's muscles easing. "That would be nice."

"And what about the man you spoke to?" Hohenheim asked, dipping his brush. "You won't see him?" He drew a fat line from beneath Ed's left shoulder blade to the one on his right.

"No I will," Ed said softly, before peeking back over his shoulder. "Are you…" Ed trailed off, but Hohenheim heard the meaning. _Are you disappointed in me? For being gay?_ It sat on Ed's tongue for only a moment before he ripped it to shreds. "He said he moved from his position, which was a pretty nice rank so…" Ed signed heavily. "I'll have to go see what kind of trouble he's gotten himself into." Ed smiled and glanced back again. "Then, you know, demand some I-Finally-Crossed-From-One-Side-Of-The-Gate-To-The -Other-Sex." Hohenheim broke out laughing and set the paintbrush aside. "I am glad you laughed," Ed said, blushing.

"I did not expect that," Hohenheim confessed, still chuckling. "You're done." Ed went to move and Hohenheim stopped him. "Now stand still and dry Ed. You can't smudge that or I'll have to do it again."

Ed stood obediently half dressed and fanning his array painted chest with an optimistic smile like they were leaving for a party and not preparing to commit mass taboo. "And what will you do when I am gone Hohenheim?"

Hohenheim considered this. "I suppose I will leave this apartment and everything in it. Travel back into one of the larger cities and devote myself to the most controversial and preposterous scientific cause being developed in hopes I can fill the void you will create." He was honest and Ed's smile disappeared for a blooming look of emerging sadness. "You'll find in this world those theories developing under the rudest of remarks, are the ones which are accurate." He continued on this new topic. He didn't want Edward dwelling on the idea of a depressed old man and so offered the picture of a scientific one. An image he knew his son could stomach better. "I am sure I will have my hands full."

Ed did not look entirely convinced and his eyes held an uneasy stare that bordered ironically on a fear of neglect. "And what idea might that be?" Ed asked, sounding skeptical there was such a cause.

"Well there is a lot of nonsense about flying and entering outer space, and I think I'll take a look and see if any of it is worth helping."

"Outer…space?" Ed fumbled with the foreign expression. Hohenheim tapped the top of the array on Ed's chest and checked his finger for paint. It was dry.

"It is the name given to the atmosphere above the atmosphere we know," he explained. Ed's expression tightened with confusion. Amestris did not fly and had not developed any form of technology presenting the invitation nor practical application outside of the recreational hot air balloon.

"What do they want the space for?" Ed asked. "Is Germany too crowded?"

"It is the fascination with flight and propulsion. In this world it is definitely possible for man to fly. They've mastered it on several levels so now the concept is more or less focused on altitude." He said 'this' world and not 'the' world because it was best to let Amestris develop as it saw fit and not send Ed back with a brain full of wild aeronautic engineering. He checked Ed's back for wet paint and found it all sufficiently dry. "You're finished." Ed looked down at himself and stroked his palm over the array on his chest.

"Guess so."

"If you'll finish undressing you can come to the parlor when you're ready." Hohenheim expected some hesitation but Ed was immediately peeling himself free of the remainder of his clothing. Hohenheim left the boy stepping out of his pants and retrieved the small expensive item he'd purchased with the onions and frying pan. It would be all he would need. "Edward I left the small towel for you on the counter." He had kept the long and fat hunter's knife in his coat since that day. "Use that for some privacy son." With the knife he went to the center of the array and set it along side the most intricate sequence of paint strokes. Cradled amongst the elaborate swirls of paint and tiny markings the blade looked poetically misleading and almost incapable of its gruesome task

"Okay!" Ed answered, none the wiser. "But I just want to throw out there, that this place is rather cold!" Hohenheim sat down with a brief laugh and removed the vest he was wearing before rolling up his sleeves. He turned the cuffs back tightly so there was no chance of anything slipping when Ed's mismatched footfalls came to the entrance way and stopped prematurely. Hohenheim looked over inquisitively, but Ed was standing stiff and holding the towel to the front of his waist blushing. Bare and in broad daylight the scars about his arm and leg were prevalent. The overly smooth and false skin tones of his prosthetics seemed out of place, but the state of Ed's battered underweight body seemed not to bother him.

"Are you okay?" Hohenheim asked softly.

"I am embarrassed," Ed confessed, closing his eyes. "It's really cold here."

Hohenheim rose to his feet with a laugh and extended a hand. Ed immediately looked to Hohenheim's movement and Hohenheim realized he could read Ed's gaze. The sign within it told him Ed was seeking comfort, and seeking it from him.

"Don't worry," Hohenheim said kindly, taking a step forward. Ed came to him quickly. "In a moment I'll take your mind off your missing clothes." This was a sad confession and he situated Ed in the middle of the array and then gestured he lower. "Sit down." Ed sat rather gracelessly hanging onto the small towel for privacy and shivering with the cold. "And lay back." Hohenheim knelt at Ed's side and with his hand behind Ed's head guided him. The alignment had to be flawless, and Ed's head fell perfectly into the middle of what looked very much like a mirrored Celtic swirl. The black paint framed Ed's skull in dramatic curls with the mathematical lines of the circle cutting down the very center of it.

"Am I in the right spot?" Ed asked, staring up with a look of growing anxiety.

Hohenheim turned his gaze from the array to Edward's golden eyes. Somehow they seemed much larger and more full of life than Hohenheim remembered. They were bright with energy and seemed to reflect the entire room. It was realizing that in less than twenty years of life Edward, as an organism, had developed almost to full maturity, and now might die without ever reaching it, that was painful. Naked, cold, and on a poor man's wooden floor Ed would, in blind willing trust, lay still for the last blow of his life. This innocence, and overwhelming naivety of faith, dried Hohenheim's mouth and made his hands shake. "Yes," he whispered, barely able to speak. "You are in the right spot."

"Just tell me what I need to do, okay?" Ed asked, giving a quick nod seeking desperate reassurance this would work.

"Your prosthetics pose a small risk." Hohenheim moved his hand to Ed's false arm. "If you want to keep them, I'll let you." This was a lie. He would convince Ed to give them up, but first he would offer the choice.

"They won't come back with me?" Ed was miserable with the idea of losing his limbs yet again. "If they won't it's pointless. If my automail couldn't come through, it makes sense that these also won't equate and will be labeled undefined." Ed lifted his prosthetic arm the slightest inch and Hohenheim began unfastening it. "I just…" Ed sighed and closed his eyes for a moment of respite. "…I just hate losing them." Hohenheim moved the arm aside before helping to detach the leg. With Ed wearing nothing but the towel draped across his thighs Hohenheim let Ed unfasten the leather strap at his waist while unfastening the one on his thigh before moving the leg off the array with the arm. Hohenheim carried them both to the kitchen and briefly, almost oddly, the thought of what he would do with them after Edward departed crossed his mind.

Hohenheim returned quickly, with waves of curling nausea coming so strongly his hands were beginning to feel clammy and the sound of his heart was always in his ears.

Edward was where he was left, limbless and stranded clutching the small towel to his groin. "Question," Ed said, when Hohenheim returned to the room and walked slowly into the array. "That…intimidating large knife along side my head…" Ed glanced to the blade parallel his face. "What is it for?" Ed sounded as if he dreaded the answer, but also, as if a large part of him expected it.

"I am going to use it to activate the arrays." This was the most scientific way to put it.

Ed closed his eyes and gave a slow nod. _Ed would have understood as much from reading the array._ "Through my chest?" Ed asked shakily.

Hohenheim felt his mouth constrict the way only a human body does to cry, and quickly, he forced a sad smile. "Yes." Ed closed his eyes again before squeezing them tightly.

"The center of my chest?" Ed asked, voice beginning to tremble. "My lungs?"

Hohenheim could see Ed thinking quickly, and calculating how long he would be able to breathe with first a knife in his lungs, and then the puncture wound filling them with blood.

"No." Ed opened his eyes with a breath of relief. "Through your heart."

Ed swallowed heavily and tossed his head with the physical impact of this knowledge. "Shit," he choked. "So even if this doesn't work, I get fucked. You weren't kidding."

"If it comes to that," Hohenheim knelt along side Ed's right hip and lifted the knife, "I'll make it quick for you." On sight of the blade and the knowledge of its purpose Hohenheim watched Ed's body constrict. His golden eyes turned to the steel of the blade and his expression broke into one of great resolution and fear.

Inside, Hohenheim felt himself shutting down. His systems were coming to a crawl; his breathing became mechanically controlled and shallow. His mind was going numb and emptying into nothing but black space. For him to give his son what he wanted, he was temporarily discarding all of himself that would interfere. Carefully, in a slow movement, he adjusted himself up against Ed's hip and angled the knife an inch above Ed's heart. "I'll push slowly, so your endorphins begin kicking in, so your body will go into a state of alarm and take the necessary steps," he whispered.

Ed's eyes were three times their size and Hohenheim could see adrenaline already flooding out into his systems. The boy's color was becoming stronger and Ed's breathing was fast.

"Then," Hohenheim said softly, focusing to communicate the process as clearly as he could. "When I near your heart I will lean on the blade so it is fast. The knife needs to go through your front, out the back, and into the floor to hit the last array, do you understand?" This would necessitate the last blow be very strong so it could crush through Ed's chest cavity and bones.

Ed choked. "I am scared."

Gently Hohenheim stroked his hand up Ed's cheek. "Edward, for the last plunge I am going to use all of my strength to guarantee the knife penetrates the floor." He pet Ed's bangs from his forehead with affection. "You won't last long when the blade goes through your heart."

Ed was physically incapable of remaining still with the adrenaline in his system and the overwhelming anticipation. With Hohenheim's hand caressing his hair Ed struggled to keep himself in control so he could focus. "Is this going to kill me Hohenheim?"

"When you feel the transmutation, you'll know what to do. You'll react just as you've always done," Hohenheim reassured. "You know what to do Edward, you're an alchemist, and you won't falter." He had to pray this was the truth, but he spoke with intense conviction because he needed to hear and believe this as much as Edward did. "Make sure you get to the other side," he ordered. "Above all else Ed, you get to the other side, give whatever you have to." If Edward did not arrive in Amestris, and if he did not die in transit, then he would be trapped with neither world able to accept him and eventually rot inside the black hate filled stomach of the gate. "If you don't make it, I fear when I finally am able to join your mother again, she won't speak to me."

Ed choked the shaky laugh of someone in absolute terror. "I'll make it," Ed said weakly, before clearing his throat. "I'll make it." Ed sounded capable and began a continuing self assuring nod. "Don't sit around here thinking I won't. I am going back and I'll get there," Ed said firmly. Hohenheim adjusted his stance so he would have the upper body strength he would need. "If I-don't think less of me if I start crying," Ed said angrily, looking both scared and certain this would be the case.

"Have I ever before?" Hohenheim teased.

"Shut up—shut up," Ed snapped. "You know the nightmares were bad. I was watching them eat him," Ed said defensively. "It was eating him."

"I know son." Hohenheim placed his palm on Ed's chest and could sense Ed's heart. It felt as if a sparrow were trapped within Ed's rib cage, its wings beating frantically. "We're going to start, stay calm." He slid his hand down Ed's stomach to the towel. Ed gripped it instinctively before lifting his hand to relinquish it. Hohenheim took it politely and threw it off the array before replacing his hand on Ed's chest. "Now when you want to fight me," he said slowly, "and you will." This would be unavoidable. There would come a time with the blade embedded where Edward would not be entirely conscious of his every move and his body would respond to save itself and fight desperately. "Try and remember not to touch the knife. I don't want to slice you more than necessary."

Ed was pale as a ghost but nodded quickly. He was already going into a mental state of panic and in response his jaw had locked and his expression constricted so his lips were very thin and his eyes were growing pink. Desperately Ed's single hand tried to grip the floor at his side and Hohenheim wished they had the luxury of satisfying the timeless need to clutch something sturdy while enduring pain. The array felt like the loneliest place in the world, and with each of them planning to go their separate ways, there was an intense fear of separation and blemishing failure. Germany revered this mark as nothing more than paint on the floor, and although they were both alchemists, the haunting notion Germany's absolutes might be stronger than those of Amestris promised this to be a one time experiment. Science had taught them both never to move forward on blind untested faith, and yet here they were again. The epitome of repetitive history.

"All right." Hohenheim lowered the knife so the tip gently touched Ed's leaping chest and felt like a pin.

"Okay!" Ed cried, startling them both. "I can't handle it, cut me some, but don't push it in!" Ed's eyes rushed with tears, and he was near hyperventilation staring at the weapon on his chest.

"What?" Hohenheim felt railroaded with Ed's sudden outburst.

"The first cut!" Ed cried. "I am scared of the first cut!" Ed closed his eyes with his confession feeling humiliated he couldn't just lay still and take it, but the first cut was always the worst. "Just cut me some so I can feel it, I keep thinking it's going to stab right in! I just need to feel it some!" Ed broke into a fit of uncontrollable wiggling.

"Ed, I am not going to push straight through now," Hohenheim said firmly. "You need to pay close attention to how I am explaining this." _How was it Ed did not understand! _

"I did! I am!" Ed cried, turning his head to the side blinking back his tears. "I just need to…" Ed lifted his hand to the blade and Hohenheim startled. He tightened his grip, afraid Ed would try and take the knife, but with a shaking hand Ed took the blade carefully, so as not to cut himself, and tried to push it downward. Hohenheim fought this with confusion. Ed seemed in control although upset. Sniffling heavily Ed stared at the knife, as if transfixed by the blade, and Hohenheim let Ed guide it downward so it punctured, until Ed drew a thin bleeding line. "Okay." Ed dropped the knife's blade with fast exhales of relief. Immediately the intense panic was subsiding and Hohenheim watched Ed recover while puffing heavy laboring breaths. _The first cut_. "I needed that," Ed said, licking his lips uneasily. "Now you can do it." Ed tucked his flesh arm up against himself. "I am ready."

Hohenheim felt unprepared and tentatively lowered the blade so it punctured the small cut, but Ed didn't move. Focusing intently he took a deep breath, the last he realized he would take with Ed in this world, before pushing.

The knife slid in and hit bone and Ed's entire body jerked. With the stab Ed choked a grunting sound in his throat, but Hohenheim was not done. He added strength to the hilt and the knife began sinking inward with the sensation of slicing a thick solid ham. Almost instantly blood came to the surface of Ed's skin and it bled like a pin prick in a water balloon. The cut was severe.

Ed was doing all he could to remain composed. He closed his eyes tightly trying to focus on his breathing, but the knife was drilling down on his rib cage and like a steel rock chisel on ceramic. Hohenheim could see the middle of Ed's chest denting inward and he feared having to apply more pressure. He wanted it slow, but the danger of not inflicting the blow to break Ed's bones meant accidentally doing so, and accidentally stabbing his heart prematurely. In a desperate but controlled move, he lifted a hand and gave the bottom of the knife's hilt a strong solid pound as if trying to slap a screwdriver into place. The effect was the crunching sound of a walnut shell giving way to pressure. Ed buckled, as if from a bullet firing into his chest, and wanting the worst part over as quickly as possible, Hohenheim repeated the blow, and Ed's chest cavity cracked like a plate and the knife sunk in half an inch.

Ed's upper torso jerked with the puncture as if it were a hammer. Immediately Ed cried out, and his hand shot up and grabbed Hohenheim's arm. Ed arched his head back, Adam's apple bobbing, and tried to press Hohenheim's arm upward. Hohenheim was ready for it, and Ed's single arm was nothing but a slight inconvenience. "Ah stop!" Ed cried. "STOP!" Hohenheim grabbed Ed's jaw because the pitch and pain in Ed's voice was almost enough to stop him when he could not stop. "It's killing me!" Ed screamed. "It's killing me!" This was true, and Hohenheim imagined the pain was unbearable.

"You're doing so well Ed," Hohenheim whispered, eyes filling with tears. The pooling blood that had filled the growing crater of Ed's chest began leaking down. It cried red tears over Ed's single nipple and spilled onto the floor. A red river, spreading out like a root, ran down the center of Ed's abs and turned his belly button into a ruby.

Still Hohenheim pushed. With Ed's rib cage broken and the knife sinking in, there was no turning back. He jerked the knife forward as if forcing it against a stubborn piece of beef, and Ed screamed.

"Dad!" They were to the point where Ed was not entirely coherent. Tears were streaming down his face and his body was jerking and twitching spastically to the firing in his brain. Directly above Ed's beating heart Hohenheim held the knife. Ed's blood was running freely, like an open faucet from his chest, and it pooled up against Hohenheim's second hand and slipped under the pads of his fingers. It was warm in the way only the interior of the body was warm, and Hohenheim paused. Plunging a knife into someone's heart was still science, and he understood that the way the blade entered might mean Ed's immediate death, prolonged suffering, or the quick collapsing of his heart. There was no certainty to any of it, because he was not a surgeon, and Ed was not in surgery. He was half alive, with tears running silently down his cheeks and his body trying to save itself from death.

The circle wasn't lighting up yet, and Hohenheim was scared to keep going. What was left of his brain at this moment told him if he killed Ed here in the parlor and nothing happened, he would have to end it.

Ed tossed his head to the side and spit up a mouthful of blood. "It's not working!" Ed cried, eyes rolling back even as he struggled to look at the array. Hohenheim was astonished Ed's mental strength was keeping him aware while penetrated with the knife. "It's not working! It's not working dad! I am bleeding out! Fuck it! I am bleeding out!"

Hohenheim tightened his grip on the knife until his hand was shaking and his knuckles were white. _It's not working dad_, Ed's words felt like a cannon firing into the numb shell of the man he had become. The sound was immense, filing his head like a siren, and shaking him to the very last root. _This had to work. _Ed made him reach inside himself, into an empty sack, and force something to appear. _If he had to give himself he would. If he had to give this world he would._ "It will work!" he cried, lifting his elbow. "I will send you back!" He leaned on the knife, and it sunk straight though like a carving knife pressed into a bird. Ed's heart felt like a ripe avocado packaged inside his flesh and stored inside his ribs. It was nothing in comparison to the sharp weapon of man, and sliced through like a tomato spilling open and bleeding seeds.

Ed howled when the blade sunk into his heart. He began kicking but Hohenheim held the knife steady.

"This is it son," he whispered, leaning down to Ed's twisted crying expression. "Tell your brother I love him, and always remember…" Ed's eyes were painfully wide, but they were seeing him. The small boy he used to bathe, tuck in, and cuddle, was seeing him. "…I love you too." Hohenheim dropped his weight into the knife, and it plunged through Ed's broken rib cage and hit the floor like a nail being slapped into place. The height of his body fell with it. Hunched over he dropped to Ed's face and kissed just aside Ed's chapped, blood smeared lips, in a chaste intimate assault of only affection.

Ed went flailing when the knife impaled through his body, but Hohenheim knew Ed was there for the kiss, and before he lost the boy forever, he could not help himself.

The final blow choked a flood of blood down Ed's chin and sent his body jerking like a speared fish. The moment the third array was pierced all three exploded in a rush of color and wind. The gate came quickly and Hohenheim yanked back to his knees and away from Ed's top half. The doors flew open nearly the same time they landed and white blinding light filled the room. For a moment there was nothing, and Hohenheim felt the gate's surprise as if it were discovering what he'd done by reading the small print of his contract. _It had to take Edward_. In this fleeting moment of consideration the vacuum of the gate's stomach pulled Hohenheim's bangs forward so they fluttered about his cheek bones, and took Ed's from his forehead. Then, the small black hands ran out like worms because they were still eager to get what they came for.

Hohenheim pulled away from Ed's side, and Ed was either dead or on his way. Ed did not respond to the arrival of the gate, he lay sprawled in the blood leaking from his chest and spreading outward like a red cape. He stared lifelessly toward the ceiling, eyes drifting outward and becoming unseeing stones.

The gate's hands came greedily, swimming the length of Ed's body with curious desire, before attacking in perfect sequence. They latched on to what limbs were left, curled beneath Ed's chin, and swarmed the knife that had tethered Ed to Germany.

_Yes, _Hohenheim thought, watching the black arms wiggle about the knife like snakes. _Pull it out, pull it free._ Inside the array a few arms came to him, but they turned away with disgust. The gate did not want him, it was tired with him. Tired of his tricks and his travels, but yanked the knife from Ed's body and ate it. The moment it was uprooted Ed's eyes bulged as if his life force was suddenly stuffed back into him, and that was perhaps the truth of it. Ed returned to his bleeding punctured body like a ghost viewing out its eyes and for a nonsensical moment regained sight of the room and the tired looking scientist wearing blood and kneeling at his hip.

Hohenheim stared back when Ed's eyes came to him and he knew his son was alive again. "Goodbye Edward." He had barely enough time to speak these words before the gate sucked Ed inside and he was gone. It had yanked the boy off the knife and back to life, and Hohenheim was left in the blood-stained array-painted living room with nothing but a small hole in the floor where the blade had stabbed in. A foot in front of him was almost three quarts of Edward's blood, and in the vacant cold apartment Hohenheim sat on the floor and wept. He cried in hope, in happiness, and in truth, because the absoluteness of the world had proven to be more powerful than any of the gods he'd ever heard named. With the science he had dedicated his life to he was able to kill and revive his son in almost the same moment, and he believed Ed would find his way back to Alphonse. With overwhelming relief and gratitude he cried, and with painful confusion he tried to ignore why he still felt the absence of his sons and his wife, and why science could not fill that absence.

* * *

Edward Elric the Fullmetal Alchemist was found in a fountain square in Lior, and for several days was in a hospital bed unmarked and unnamed until he found consciousness. The boy rose suddenly, in the middle of a sponge bath, and while demanding to know the date, and shoving the nurse away from his wet, naked, and bruised body screamed out, "I am the Fullmetal Alchemist! Get me a goddamn phone!" As a result half a hospital wing learned before anyone else the Alchemist of the people had been found.

News spread fast, with the undercurrent of a rumor, to a small town with rolling hills, a busy military building in Central, and a small local meat shop in Dublith. By nightfall the incoming trains brought visitors and officers who wanted to see the rumored person who claimed to be the Fullmetal Alchemist, but this unnamed individual was sealed in intensive care.

The town of Lior was not equipped with the high tech resources Central had, and the medical staff was cautious. The hospital, a three story building with two hundred and forty beds, was also not ready to handle the type of excitement the suggested discovery of one long lost alchemist could bring. Nursing staff was thin, and the simple need to continuously turn away potential visitors, news reporters, and odd snooping individuals became old quickly.

Of the three head nurses, the longest standing took charge of the situation. She had a gruff voice, and had made her life cleaning up bodily spills, soothing bleeding wounds, and delivering children. She manned the front reception desk like a brigadier, and mercilessly told lingering bodies to clear the small lobby and find hotel rooms. She was not won over with the complimentary lunch one reporter brought in around noon, or the small wad of cash another tried to slide across the counter beneath a stray clipboard. She turned way an endearing looking woman with dreadlocks and her bull of a husband even though they seemed emotionally concerned and said they were like family, without batting an eye.

The nursing staff took solace in her, and it was not until late the first evening, with the sun sweeping in through the large front hospital windows that a young blonde boy in a blood red coat came running in. He appeared frantic, and the nurses were ready. The two younger backed away from the front desk and the lead nurse took the front lines. The boy didn't look a day over twelve, and threw his hands down on the counter when he arrived and asked, just like everyone else, to see the Fullmetal Alchemist. Then, unlike the rest, when he was denied, he stepped back mute. His expression was that of overwhelming sadness, and before the head nurse could advise he find a hotel room or return to his mother, he started crying.

Working in a hospital, the nurses on staff had seen lots of crying children. Over the years perhaps hundreds or even thousands, and not one of them compared to his boy. He broke into a shameless desperate cry, as if the Fullmetal Alchemist had died, and he was too late.

The nurses took pity on him. He was led away from reception and into the back halls. Other visitors didn't see him again.

When Hawkeye arrive at almost nine that night, she was also advised a hotel was more appropriate until Doctor's cleared visitation. Although Hawkeye did not break into tears, she was not as quick to leave as others. She asked pointed questions, and inquired as to when the Doctor would next evaluate the boy she simply referred to as Edward. The nurses refused to comment, protecting patient confidentiality, but did share that the Doctor would return late that night.

Hawkeye decided to wait. She called Havoc, who had taken the train in with her, and asked him to pick up dinner. They ate in the lobby, and afterward Havoc fell asleep in the chair at her side. She was left alone with her book, much as she had been during the train ride. She was reading the latest Central best selling mystery, and ignored all the activity around her. The only thing she acknowledged was the sound of the main door opening. Each time a new party arrived, she glanced up. She swept the new individual with her eyes, and returned with indifference to her book. The reporters were a bit relentless and she felt bad for the hospital staff. For the most part they seemed unprepared and timid when it came to being rude and telling young pushy story-chasers what-for. They relied on one senior nurse, and she was growing tired and wanted desperately to go home, take a bath, and feed her cat.

Near midnight, Hawkeye glanced up from her book to the sound of the main door opening and did not lower her eyes. Rather than sweeping this visitor in that quick soldier glance, she stared. She knew she would be unnoticed as the new visitor made his way to main reception. She knew his focus would be consumed while he asked for the Fullmetal Alchemist, and the nurses again, would repeat the mantra no visitors were allowed while looking irritated and overworked.

He was far more humble than she remembered him, like a roaring fire which had become a small content flame. There was something peaceful about him now, something resigned and patient in a place where before he was always barking for a bigger bone.

He thanked the nurses kindly, and turned around from reception to look for a lobby chair.

Their eyes met.

_She knew he would come._

* * *

…Curtain Falls…

A thousand thank-yous for reading my humble story – This is the end, and I sincerely hope you enjoyed it.

Before you come to worry I will post a single Epilogue. It will be posted next Friday 5/17/13, and those small parting words will be the absolute conclusion.

As many of you know, voting has closed on which story will be posted next, and "Foolish For You" is the winner. (Foolish For You and Big Bang Theory were neck and neck this past week and all night! Thank you all for voting!) Story descriptions are available in my profile, and "Foolish For You" will kick off June, posted the very first Friday 6/7/13. I will be honored to see you there for Chapter 1: _Pique My Curiosity_

Now, to all of you who just completed this chapter, and this story, you owe it to yourself (and me of course) to leave one final review. It took an immense amount of time and effort to write this for you ~ please repay in kind.

Leave evidence you were here. Comment in the box below. : ) It has been my honor to have you. I'll see you all for the Epilogue.


	19. Epilogue

The Silent Heart  
_Epilogue_

- mirage -

Hawkeye had arrived at Lior's main hospital later than some of the more demanding visitors: a woman with pink bangs, two young blonde boys, Lieutenant Ross who was now in the hotel down the street, and the woman with dreadlocks. Although most had scattered from the lobby, after their confrontation with reception, Hawkeye knew they were in town, and she had been waiting for _him_ to show.

Dressed as a simple man he gave her a fond half smile from beneath his jet black hair and eye patch. Subconsciously, or perhaps more consciously than she was aware of, she set her book aside, stood up, and saluted. _He was, and would always be, her colonel._

Roy approached, with the soft chuckle of a humbled man, and said, "You don't need to salute me anymore Lieutenant."

Hawkeye lowered her hand and smiled warmly. "I solute those I believe deserve it."

"Is it really him?" Roy asked. The cast of a lower rank didn't fit him, and he looked discretely shabby, like a fine item in poor quality wrapping. His reserve and respectable nature swam within his mannerisms, but seemed diluted, and there was something sad about the crime of watching something splendid dry up. Something pitying about the drought being voluntary, and vastly misunderstood by the in debt Amestrian populous.

There was doubt lingering in Roy's voice, but hope dancing in his gaze.

"We're not sure." She was honest. "I haven't been told more than what is basic rumor and isolated in intensive care, no one has been able to secure access to confirm identity. The hospital has proven unafraid to boldly assert authority."

"Is he hurt badly?"

"We have no access to his health records." Until Edward was confirmed an enlisted person, or more specifically a State Alchemist, the military's jurisdiction, did not outrank Amestrian health law.

Roy fell silent, and considered the small lobby where a few familiar faces were sleeping, Havoc included. Roy studied Havoc's sagging head and drooling mouth with an appreciative smile. "Even Havoc came."

"Armstrong is on his way."

Roy closed his eyes. "This is ludicrous," he said, laughing at himself as much as he was the lot of them. They all had schedules they were interrupting, lives they were pausing, bank accounts they were dipping into. "On no certain grounds, and yet all these people…" _Were they all this hopeless when you came right down to it?_

"Forgive me sir," Hawkeye said kindly. Her words were painfully familiar. "But you traveled farther than all of us, if I may be so bold."

Roy brought a hand to his face as if a bit embarrassed, but his smile was bright with fragile optimism. "I guess I did," he said, feeling bashful. "What room number did they say he was in?" The lobby had only a few chairs before the nurses' reception station, and past it a long entrance way to the hospital. In the archway was a small unmarked door with a mop and bucket propped alongside.

"Rumor says the entrance door has no window."

Roy gave a nod, and with a brief glance of stealth toward the near empty nurses' station, approached the bucket and picked it up. "Where are you going sir?" Hawkeye asked, realizing directly after her question, that the cheerful humor in her voice meant she already knew.

"I've told you Hawkeye," Roy said, lifting the mop. "You don't need to address me so formally."

Like a member of the janitorial department, Roy left down the hall with his cleaning supplies, and Hawkeye watched, smiling widely. At her side Havoc gave a quick dream induced twitch and snored a bit louder.

* * *

Without much difficulty Mustang found a back windowless patient room, and left the mop and bucket in the hall behind him. The hospital was dark and silent, with pockets of staff and light together. Avoiding the nurses' stations, where late night administrative tasks were being performed, was easy. The vacant halls carried the lullaby of slumber and the smell of antiseptics.

Outside a single shadowed door, Roy stood like a martyr. If he stayed outside the door forever, than he could live forever in the caressing hope that somehow, against all odds, _all of them_, Fullmetal had actually managed to disappear and reappear with nothing but a few lonely months of absence. If he went through the door, he risked gaining and losing every shred of hope that was left. Soldiers were not sheltered from abrupt death. The bullet ripping, skull impacting, sudden and certain mortality that came upon them indiscriminately in battle, could strip away your best friend, or the John at your side with a single flash of powder, burst of mortar, or flip of shrapnel. To say that you could not handle loss, not handle death, not handle separation, was not to be a soldier, and you didn't reach the status of Colonel, without first embracing, hating, and forcing the tolerance of coping indifference inside you. A world outside this door was perhaps more merciful, and more kind, than anything deserved. The peaceful solitude, with every lingering hope and faith that one day, even if only through your own loss of life, you would pass through the door, and the face on the other side would be the only one you wanted.

It was human nature, selfish corrupt, and unyielding instinct that greedily demanded more than a hallway existence. It commanded immediate satisfaction of insatiable need by careless action. _Throw back the door!_it said, _Are you a man or a mouse! Would you live groveling on your knees, you shameless bag of skin. When did you let the heart of you run out like piss and stink in the gutter._

Roy lifted his hand and turned the unlocked doorknob with perfect composure and tempo. _He was a solider._ Every bit of his posture was correct, tall with honorable mention, but pliable in promise. His fingers, numb and cold, could not feel the knob's brass. His mouth dry and throat tight with emotional constriction, compared not to the dignified expression on his face. He would open this door with the perfunctory air of one opening a closet. He would open this door, with the bleeding need of one who not long ago dreamed a dream of their lover screaming and fading mercilessly alone into blackness. Where scientific equations resonated upward like poison, and the looping circles of a transmutation tightened like a thousand nooses.

The patient room was quiet, looking all but deserted. It was dark, and Roy stood silently in the doorway waiting for his eyes to drink in the bit of light there was. The tiny blinking yellow machine lights, the fat red glowing knob to something stationed with many wires and tubes, and finally, the single lavatory light, left on with the door ajar, slitting the room with a pie wedge of visible furniture and colors. The dull linoleum floor, the pale of the privacy curtain half circled about the bed, and the bright blood red fabric at the foot of it.

All at once there was Edward, and he was twelve again. He was curled up on the two waiting chairs before the patient bed, sleeping, the coat wrapped about him like a sheet. _The red coat._

A hundred memories of an adolescent Edward streamed into Roy's mind with immense relief and fear. The boy had been found, but the boy was a child. A vicious surge, of guilt-ridden selfishness charged through Mustang's veins. It was born of the contradiction of being overwhelmingly relieved Ed was safe, and returned to his home, while battling wild anger the boy had reduced so significantly in age. _He felt robbed. _That wasn't his lover that was a child!_ What was to become of them now!_

Then the face, slowly, through the dim light, brought the features steadily into focus. The slender nose, gentle brow, and cropped perky hair, and Mustang felt a laugh, a true joyful laugh bubble up his lungs and catch in his throat so all that emerged was a soft burping grunt of joy. _It was Alphonse, and where there was Alphonse, there was…_

Mustang looked to the single patient bed shrouded in the cloak of the room. He stepped toward it, his animal instinct silent as it gained its want, his mind cautiously reminding his act would either gain true freeing hope, or lose it entirely.

His feet felt three sizes larger, and at the side of the mattress he stopped. For the first time his ears registered the subtle beeping of equipment, the faint glimmer of light on the tubing snaking about the bed sheets, the threading blue and yellow electrical wires, and something fat and bulbous, like the mantle of an octopus, perched up toward the pillows. His mind envisioned this scene with himself standing in a white brightly lit tiled room. He was pulling back the blood splattered curtain encircling an operating table, wondering what he would find. Something hideous was lurking right behind the question, _just what condition was Ed in if the Doctors were being this careful with him? _If they wouldn't risk moving him to Central where care was better and resources greater.

There could be a thousand things wrong. Other limbs missing, face burnt, hair gone, eyes, speech, thought, destroyed. Ed could be a vegetable. He could be a lunatic, he could be a two year old mind in an adolescent body, abandoning his education and wanting only to color with crayons and look at picture books.

What in heaven's name could Ed have possibly done to himself to wind up like this? To disappear for so long. To reappear after a lapse of time that suggested it was not a choice, but a struggle to return.

Roy was holding an entire bag of prickling fear for Ed's well-being and determining which was heavier, the physical or mental, was almost impossible. Ed went in with only two limbs and a head, how much more could he pay in toll? The morbid vision of Ed existing as a single mobile head on a limbless torso slapped Roy mentally, and he closed his eyes and forced himself to look at the raised crumple of sheets that meant a person lay before him.

Ed appeared asleep in the hospital bed. The drape of the blankets made it clear both his automail arm and leg were missing, and in their place a sea of meandering tubes seemed to be feeding into the blankets about the ports. What bit of Ed's skin was visible, came mostly about his collar bone. The sheet was tucked up high, Ed's hair was trapped in a plastic cap, and attached to the wealth of his face was the white puffing bag of equipment. Roy had never seen anything like it, and it looked offensive, as if an animal had attacked Ed's head and mouth. The octopus body was pulsing, pushing air in and out, as if Ed's body wasn't breathing on its own. Its swirling tentacles latched to Ed's jaw, fed off into the bed, and brought in other tubes and wires. About the monster Ed's face was dry, blank, and starkly foreign and sickly without the comfort of his bangs. His eye sockets looked stained with bruises and were dark prunes in the boy's face. The wires feeding into his nose were thin clear things, but Ed's nostrils were pink and raw.

Roy grabbed at his closed mouth in an unconscious gesture of sorrow felt alarm. Ed had never seemed as weak, as horrifically fragile, as he did at this moment. The boy was a body of chalk, chipping, and cracking. Dry and breaking under one solid blow. Ed's visible flesh arm had a wealth of injection marks, and was tethered to the sea of fluids and narcotics with an IV.

In every way, it seems to Roy, that the boy screaming and crying to him in his dreams, might have fought his way free of the coffin trapping him and arrived half insane from the dark space with nothing but bloody bone tipped fingers. Everything about this scene was wrong. Roy's eyes jerked around the bed to the few machines ruling Ed's automail ports, and the assault on the boy's facial orifices. Inside the octopus a fat white tube, thick enough to keep Ed's mouth open, was wedged inside and taped securely in place. There were no signs the hospital had identified Ed as an alchemist. No restrains on his hand, no identification he was with the State. The hospital did not truly know who the boy was. He was a drifting body, and the hospital was giving, no, forcing medical care on the boy as it saw fit. Not as Edward would have dictated it. Not as Edward, who disliked things in his nose, hated things in his mouth, and demanded automail, would have allowed.

So this meant what? That Ed had not really awoken? Or that he had awoken and the mind was gone, or broken.

A soft whispering voice spoke behind Roy, and his head whipped around with a tight vicious scowl across his face.

Alphonse was sitting up, face tired, but eyes wide. "Colonel?" Alphonse asked, unmoved by Roy's seized look of torment. It was clear it wasn't directed at anyone. It was clear it was agony over the visual in the bed. "You're here," Alphonse said, sounding awe stricken "When did you get here?"

Roy's voice carried him as swiftly as his boots always had, and he answered, "Just now." The scowl fading from his face, his mouth, graceful, and managing for him. "Has he woken up at all?"

Alphonse pushed himself to his feet, wobbled once, and staggered to the foot of Ed's bed. He didn't look entirely well. The adult urge was to feed him, get him to drink, and the boy's eyes were fat from tears. After a long pause Alphonse said, "He's been sleeping." Alphonse slid a slender hand across the blankets and gently gripped Ed's ankle through the bed's cottons. Then he lifted his gaze and said, "It's good to see you."

"You as well."

"They said he's very weak. He hasn't been awake since they snuck me in. He's been having problems with his heart, and lungs. They had someone in here monitoring him, ready to resuscitate if he failed."

Roy was horrified. "What happened to him?"

"They don't know." Alphonse looked extremely distressed. The boy's face wrinkled with sadness in every way possible. The thin eyebrows wagged down into stress, the lean mouth stretched back as if the boy would sob, and the tiny nose wrinkled with offense, the same way Ed's did. "His nurse tried to explain it to me, but it's hard…to understand, and…I've…not been thinking so well lately." Alphonse added a quick, "I've been tired, but it sounds as if…his heart wasn't beating in the right rhythm. The nurse said, explained it like a car getting bumped out of its lane while driving. Zigzagging, trying to find it's pace and stability again. He's been like that, too slow, too fat, zigzagging erratically and his lungs…" Alphonse trailed off, looking worse. "They were okay they said, until he exercised them. They said he yelled, and one collapsed, they're fixing them." Alphonse pointed to the octopus. "Like…I don't know, like they're blowing them up like balloons." Alphonse's idiolect took on a slow surreal pace, as if the medical explanation of it all pushed him to his limit. It was almost too much for the boy, but he wasn't spared the mercy of having to see Ed this way. Of having to look at him and understand what he was looking at. "They keep checking him," Alphonse said, dropping his hand and giving a small optimistic nod. "But…he is getting better."

_Getting better from what_, Roy's mind snapped viciously. _From the state of a vegetable!_"Alphonse has anyone seen him awake? Has he spoken?"

Alphonse was silent, looking uncertain and worried with this question before hope lit the boy's face with the strength of a candle. "Yes," Alphonse said quickly, nodding. "Yes, one nurse said he was sassy. So he must have woken up."

_Sassy._ Roy smiled warmly. _That sounded like Ed._

"So he's not in immediate danger than?" Alphonse didn't look as if he felt comfortable saying this. "Not…enough to have someone standing by to resuscitate?"

"Yes," Alphonse said. "Not that much."

Roy turned back to Ed and sighed heavily. "How long has he been here?" There was comfort in the fact the hospital staff no longer believed Ed might die at any moment, but it was clear they had no hope of Ed returning to life anytime soon. Ed was not a temporary resident, he was a permanent fixture in his bed, strapped to things a cognitive mobile person was not. The breathing apparatus, feeding tube, and wealth of wires made this rudely apparent. Gently Roy moved his hand to where Ed's limp flesh one lay and the boy's skin was the color of paper.

"I know he's been here for over a week, I think almost two but…I am not really sure if it's possible for him to have been here longer. He could have been here, and just…been unconscious." Alphonse sounded horrified with this idea. "Who knows really, but…I know the…well the nurses have said it's been nearly two weeks since he supposedly spoke and said who he was, and…I know," Alphonse's voice went soft, "…that I've been with him for almost a day." Roy gently traced his index finger up Ed's thumb. "When they take the mask off him, he has a horrible rash, all over the bottom of his face." It covered Ed's chin, lips, mouth, and bits of his throat, as if something corrosive had exploded just below his bottom lip and spread. "They've been treating it."

Roy looked up with interest. "The mask can come off?" Alphonse went silent with this question, but his eyes were involved in a conversation made of their gaze.

_Yes, the mask comes off. _

_I want to take it off. _

_I'll help you._

Without speech they took either side of Ed's bed and grabbed clumsily at the foreign foam bits, thin plastic, and medical tape. Their fingers were careful, so careful, taking delicate cautious steps, but with hunger the movements grew more frantic. They peeled, and pulled, and unraveled, with growing intensity. Ed's face was coming free, and the desire to get it free become frenzied and communal between them.

"Can he breathe without the tube?" Roy asked, glancing at Alphonse as the octopus let loose, and the fat hose feeding into the side of Ed's mouth was all that was left.

"It's not oxygen. I don't really understand what it's doing," Alphonse said quickly. He lowered his hand just above Ed's nose and nodded with conviction. "He breathes on his own."

Roy didn't need to know what the tube was to dismantle it. He peeled up the tape on Ed's jaw and lips, and uprooted the short fat thing. It was too short to reach the back of Ed's throat, and Alphonse brushed the plastic cap aside, and Ed's bangs spilled over his forehead and cheeks.

It felt like an un-burial. A digging into, like an excavation.

Ed's heart monitor didn't change, and his body didn't move, but suddenly he had appeared, and Alphonse was shifting uncomfortably with tears in his eyes while Roy stood motionless and stoic. He lifted a heavy hand and rested it on Ed's forehead just to touch the boy. All about Ed's mouth, lips, chin, and right cheek was a skin curling rash. It was the only color on the boy, and it looked foreign, like a vicious parasite latched to its unconscious host.

"When he wakes up I want to see him," Roy said softly.

"Are—are the nurses going to sneak you in too?" Alphonse asked, sounding desperate for company and the guiding reassurance of an adult on premises. _A trusted adult._

"I have to make a phone call," Roy said, taking his hand from Ed's forehead. Alphonse sputtered a worried sound, as if Roy were leaving for good, and his eyes clung to the man in need. "Stay with him."

Roy returned to the lobby and Hawkeye was with her book. He confirmed Ed's identity and they woke Havoc and left to use the phone. With Ed a State Alchemist, there was someone in Amestris who owned him, and that was the State. The State could decide where and how he received care, and the State could decide where and who was allowed to treat and visit him. The State would send talented Doctors, or they would send suitable transport back to Central, and the State would grant health care proxy to Edward Elric's demoted, albeit convincing ex-colonel who claimed to have identified the boy and possessed relevant information of his disappearance obtained through a transmutation he was in possession of.

_At home, out in Northern Amestris, stained into the sheets of Roy's bed where he slept when he dreamed of Ed's voice, was the ashy outline of an immense and overwhelming transmutation. Burnt into the fabric from the opposite side of which he slept, as if Ed was channeling in from beneath him._

The State was a vast resource, but it was also the entitled owner of a show dog. The health care proxy was only good for twelve hours, the time it would take for higher officers to arrive and assess the situation. Roy would take what he could get, and twelve hours in his old role as Ed's commander was a blessing.

He immediately crafted a new proxy, naming Alphonse the sole agent possessing full medical control of Edward. He ordered a detailed medical report and sent it to Resembool and received one back at lightning speed full of small Rockbell penmanship changing Ed's entire care plan and medication regiment. He placed two guards outside Ed's new and improved hospital room, and most importantly he guaranteed he was present when Ed's eyes opened.

This happened sooner rather than later with the change in medications. The Rockbells had moved Ed to prescriptions his body was familiar with, removed heavy narcotics with risk of addiction and organ stress, and Ed's color returned.

They had ordered Ed be given hourly care to keep re-positioning his body with special sensitivity to the automail ports, but with this, unlike with most changes, the hospital was resistive. Roy had witnessed Ed's current doctor holding a phone to his ear while a fuming Pinako Rockbell released a top of her lungs torrent on how sorry the hospital would be if they did not follow her care plan while Ed was her patient. The tiny old lady insisted she _owned_ Edward Elric, and was _coming up there_, so the hospital relented. Under Rockbell instruction Ed was scrubbed with a concoction of medications Pinako listed over the phone, and it had left Ed's skin looking shiny, and polished. With respectful uncertainty the feeding tube and IV were not removed, but things were gravely improved.

Within eleven hours Ed's eyes opened, and with Alphonse hovering over Ed's bed side, Ed whispered his brother's name in the flat tone of object recognition.

"Alphonse."

Propped up on several pillows Ed had returned to awareness with Alphonse directly in view, and stared at the young boy.

Alphonse didn't answer the sound of his name. His gaze jerked up to meet Ed's with surprise, and then he stared back. Across his lips grew a slow happy smile, that of a reunited friend, before he whispered, "Hi."

Ed's voice was hoarse and cracked, as if with the flu, but he could use it, and Roy was weak with relief. His knees felt like watery swells, and his hands were fat bloated things on the wobbly strings of his arms. Ed's eyes brought sight to Ed's brain, and Ed's brain could still interpret it. _His mind had made it. Through the gate and back again._

"Why are…you so…young?" Ed rasped, eyes locked on Alphonse's youthful ten year old face with a hint of a blossoming frown.

"Well, I am—that is—I am four years younger now nii-san," Alphonse said. "The Philosopher's stone did it."

Ed's brow smoothed and he muttered. "Gluttony…di…dn't eat…you?"

Alphonse laughed. "He did try." Alphonse reached into the bed and captured Ed's limp flesh hand in a tight squeeze. "It's so good to see you nii-san." Alphonse's head fell forward and his shoulders went rigid with sudden intense emotion. He clamped down on Ed's hand, but Ed's gaze softened with understanding.

"This entire…time," Ed said, voice faint. "I was…trying to get back…" Alphonse choked a soft discrete sob. "…to you." With Alphonse doubled forward, Ed's gaze lifted, slowly, and with no interest in the room, to land on Roy's formidable standing body.

Roy found it impossible to sit. Alphonse took to roosting in Ed's hospital room, almost nestling into chairs, while Roy could not. Sitting felt like a sign of defeat or willful surrender, and he stood, always, silently hovering at the base of the bed. He was directly in line with Ed's eyes when they opened and lifted, and Ed's pupils stopped deliberately.

Ed's expression of exhausted illness gave no response to Roy, but his eyes, Ed's eyes flooded with a brighter color when he met Roy's gaze."Is…this…" Ed rasped, crumbling with pitiful need to hear what he thought was true to be true. "Is…this…"

"Amestris," Roy answered.

"…you…are…"

"Roy Mustang."

Every bit of Roy's internal systems were slamming. Heart compulsively seizing in on itself painfully with each beat, ears flooded with the sound of blood, muscles and bones tight and stiff as rods, even his vision gave a soft bounce with each pulse of his circulation, but he did not move. His face remained composed. He was a soldier, and he was facing another soldier. He was a man, and he was facing another man. He respected Ed enough, respected him enough, respected them enough, to recognize the right way to say, it's good to have you back. He would not run, gushing over his lover. He would not deface and humiliate Ed with mournful tears, pawing at him with needy abandon. He would stand tall, he would serve well, and Ed was thankful. The boy's face was blank with fatigue, but the eyes, the eyes were pots of gold, the eyes were a thousand sunsets over, the eyes were unbounded gratitude, and debt, and freedom, and love.

"I…am…" Ed managed, throat releasing a sliver of emotional cancer in a sudden graceless squeak. "…I…am…"

"Edward Elric," Roy said.

These were the questions Ed needed answered, and these were the answers Ed needed to hear. Roy gave them, one after the other, stretching out his palms, and speaking though his gaze, so he was holding private conversation with Ed while Alphonse sobbed quietly.

_Seeing you again is heartbreak._

_Separation from you was heartache._

_Don't leave me._

_Don't leave me._

Alphonse broke their dialogue gracelessly, sitting up and wiping tears off his face before demanding loudly, "Nii-san! Where did you go!" Alphonse sounded frantic and wild. "How did you get back!" Alphonse sobbed. "Where did you go!"

"A…horrible…place," Ed said, answering dryly, before changing. Roy saw it immediately. Ed's breath became thinner, as if he were expecting attack. "A world…far…away with…white things in the sky…this Germany…I had to…made…wear a dress…Havoc…not able to…my automail….no alchemy…" Ed was skipping like a record, jumping the flood of topics that Alphonse seemed to have suddenly unhinged. Alphonse realized at once, looking scared of what he'd done. Ed had been collected, but now he was not. His eyes closed, a frown came and looked hideous, like a root system spreading into Ed's dry, pale, bruised, and rash ridden face. The boy's lips looked like old paint peeling up. His nostrils were blood red things, and his eye sockets appeared to be molding in on themselves. "I thought I was going to die," Ed croaked. "Die there."

Roy glanced to Alphonse, a heavy adult warning in his gaze. _Stop, don't push anymore_, but Alphonse was staring at Ed in horror. Piecing Ed's words into a frightening dark world of another dimension where Ed might have found death while they were here, untouched, free and careless.

"I couldn't…get to you," Ed said, flesh hand giving a twitch, perhaps trying to return Alphonse's grasp. "Roy didn't know me…he, didn't know me."

"I know who you are Ed," Roy said quickly. "You don't need to talk anymore now. Don't think about these things, you need to rest."

"Bastard with a…straight face, straight bastard with…Roy's face," Ed muttered incoherently, floundering as exhaustion consumed him.

"Alphonse, I don't think we should upset him," Roy said softy. Ed's rate of breath was increasing to that of a jog, and the sound of it was heavily wheezed. They had stripped Ed's face of equipment without understanding what aid or pain relief they might be removing. Briefly Roy envisioned Pinako's tiny old self standing at the foot of Ed's bed screaming at them. "I think we should get a nurse."

"You get a nurse then!" Alphonse snapped, clinging tighter to Ed's hand. "Nii-san, you're home now. You're safe now. Don't worry." Ed did look worried. Ed looked victim to a terrible accident, experiencing the memories in waves of violent images and fright. He was terrified he was going to fall asleep, fall asleep and wake up in Germany. Fall asleep and find out he was dreaming.

Selfishly Roy didn't want to leave the room, but he was becoming unable to ignore his concern someone educated to the situation might need to intervene to keep Ed safe.

"I am…alive…here," Ed rasped, beginning a fragile shutter through out his frame. "I want to stay…alive here."

"I want you to stay alive here too," Alphonse said, frightened with conversation of living, and the indirect conversation of dying. _There was to be none of that. No dying._ Alphonse ripped up the side of Ed's blankets with both hands.

For as long as he could remember, Ed's first priority was him, and with angry determination, Alphonse was dedicated to return the commitment. In every moment of his life where he was down for the count, Ed had stayed over him, shielding him, and now it was his turn. Fussing with tears in his eyes, and his heart warming to a hot consuming ache in his chest, he lifted the blankets up from Ed's side and wiggled in. He curled to the side of Ed's bare and bruised body, and hugged.

Roy had stepped closer to the bed with confusion, but had not intervened.

"I am going to stay right here with you nii-san," Alphonse whispered, looping an arm over Ed's chest. Ed calmed with this treatment. The shaking stopped, and Ed's breathing dropped back into its regular pattern. He seemed unable to manage such an excited state, and was dying like a fire which had burned its last bit of kindling. Ed's expression went slack, but the flesh hand moved outward, opening slightly.

"Where is…he?" Ed managed, barely able to crack his eyes.

"At the foot of the bed," Alphonse said quickly, looking down to Roy. "Come up here." Alphonse beckoned for Roy to move closer. Roy approached and took Ed's hand.

The corner of Ed's mouth managed to lift just a fraction, what would have been a blooming smile of relief if Ed had the strength. Using just Ed's chart, Pinako had estimated Ed would need a week to recover to, what she called, her loudmouth grandson, but she had seemed confident it would happen. Her frail voice had sounded empowered over the phone when Roy spoke to her. She demanded he promise to ensure the staff did as she said until she could arrive, and she sounded determined, in a comforting way, that no harm was to come to Ed. This more than anything else made Roy certain that Ed was safe. Recovery meant patience, and Roy found himself going calm. He had waited this long, what was another week? What was another month?

"This is…" Ed whispered.

"Amestris."

"You…are…Roy Mustang."

Roy smiled. "And you are Edward Elric."

The corner of Ed's mouth lifted again, but the boy's eyes were stuck closed, and looked like plums. "The…" Ed rasped. "…freaking…Fullmetal Al…chemist…of the damned….people." Even half dead Ed sounded arrogant, and Roy gave Ed's hand a tight squeeze.

"Nii-san, how did you get back?" Alphonse asked, sounding half asleep. His head was resting on Ed's armless automail and Ed's complexion looked to have improved again, as if Alphonse was a sun radiating strength. "To us, how did you get back to us?"

Ed went silent, and for a long moment Roy was certain Ed had drifted back to sleep before Ed spoke in a crackled, strained voice, "Someone who…loved us… I…" Roy felt what little grip there was to Ed's hand loosen and knew the boy was slipping under. "…misunderstood."

Alphonse lifted a questioning gaze to Ed, before turning it to Roy when Ed's breathing pattern dropping into slow heavy breathes.

"Don't wake him," Roy said softly. "We have all the time we need to ask him questions. What's important now is that he rest. It's been a long journey." Roy slid his hand free of Ed's sleeping grasp and stepped back. He still couldn't find it in himself to sit, but standing at Ed's bedside was not a chore.

There was a lot on the horizon. The state was coming, and the military would arrive in only a few hours. Skilled Central doctors were in route with Pinako only a few train stops behind, and Lior was collecting with friendly visitors who wanted their share as well. This was the calm before the final healing, built upon a stronger foundation than that previous. Old cracks and old holes had been smoothed and sealed, and Ed's new frame was sturdy, promising, and resonated with vigor.

His absolutes had freed him of shackles so old, their burden about his heart went unquestioned, but now, the difference in weight was soaring.

* * *

...Curtain Falls...

To all you wonderful readers, thank you so much for reading until the end.  
The dessert for this closing will be Shrimp Cocktail *sets out platter* indulge!

This isn't the end of me yet! As I announced last week "Foolish For You" was the winning story of my poll (poll results up on my profile) and will be posted in June. If I could manage to post more than one at a time, I would love to get "The Big Bang Theory" up here now, but if you enjoyed my story and do want to read some of the others I have, please follow my penname, these will go up. They're already entirely written, they just need to be posted. Also, as you may know, "Foolish For You" is a yaoi story. If for any reason you feel tempted to read, but are generally uncomfortable or unfamiliar with yaoi, please message me with any concerns, and I will give you honest answers.

To close "The Silent Heart" I hope this Epilogue gave you that final tid-bit to sate you. It was a relief for me to verify Ed was home safely, reunited with Alphonse, and then of course, there was Roy.

**Please try and leave a review** in credit to my painstaking hours at the keyboard, and hopefully, in tribute to your own enjoyment. _What did you think of Hohenheim and Ed's developing relationship? How was it watching life in Germany, with the gate, and with the immense struggle of life's burdens and travel home? _It has been an honor posting this for you, and every Friday has been its own little treasure as I read your reviews and heard your feedback as things developed.

Once more, my sincerest thanks, I hope to see you all 06/07/13 for "Foolish For You" Chapter one: _Pique My Curiosity. _Please grab some shrimp, as you leave a review. : )


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